CHERUB: The Mechanic
by bobdat
Summary: A south London gang are training children to do their dirty work, and the only people who can stop them are highly-trained CHERUB agents. George gets his first real mission with his best friend Rex and both of them know that being successful could make all the difference in their careers as agents. If only they could stay out of trouble. (Sequel to CHERUB: Knight)
1. 1: C-----

**1: C_**

The metal frame of the bed shook with the impact of George crashing painfully into it. He rolled to his right and avoided a punch that would otherwise have impacted with his nose. The momentum of the roll meant he could get back to his feet, and he used his momentary advantage to run for the door. Before he could get it open, his opponent slammed it shut and pushed George away. George dropped back into a fighting stance, dodging a kick before landing a block and managing to press forwards, his kick connecting and his opponent slamming into the door before sliding down it into a sitting position. The battle won, George launched an all-out kick into the head area, but pulled back a few inches short.

"Hit my head on the door," Rex complained, accepting George's hand up. "You could've not pushed me back so hard."

"Sorry," George replied insincerely. Rex was a sore loser and bitter experience had told George that the only way he would ever be friends with you was if you just swallowed your pride every once in a while. In this case, though, George was happy to apologise because, for the first time since they'd arrive on the Mediterranean island of C_, he'd actually managed to beat Rex in a tussle.

The two boys were sharing a room and once the lights were out they often ended up in an impromptu wrestling bout, but they sometimes turned violent and George was pleased to have won this one. Usually he ended up pinned to his bed with Rex laying into his arm or leg to get him to submit, and all of the karate training that Rex had been doing during his suspension from missions for destroying a girl's room was paying off.

"I'm going to bed," Rex grumbled, finding his lost t-shirt somewhere on the floor and pulling it on before climbing into his bed, sounding put-out.

George didn't reply, but once he got back into bed he noticed that his pillows were missing.

"Where did my pillows end up?" he asked, looking under the blanket without any luck.

"Don't know, don't care," Rex replied, but the tone of his voice suggested he knew full well.

"Give them back," George demanded, jumping to his feet. "I can't sleep without them."

"How is that my problem? They're probably on the floor somewhere, or in the toilet," Rex said, holding back a laugh.

George didn't want to think about the possibility of his pillows getting dipped in toilet water, so he tore Rex's pillows away from his head and ran back to his bed.

"Hey, get your own!" Rex said, getting out of bed and aiming a kick at George. It caught the back of his heel and George toppled onto the bed, getting a second encounter with the painful bed frame.

"You can have mine," George replied, fending Rex off with a rugby tackle. Both boys tumbled onto the floor and rolled over, each trying to get the upper hand. George had just got his arm wrapped around Rex's back and was pinning him awkwardly in the gap between the end of his bed and the wall when the door flew open and the light flicked on.

"Alright you two, enough is enough," the voice of Maira, a white-shirt who was an agent until recently and was helping out at the hostel before she went to university in October. "I've listened to you banging around on the floor and the walls for the past hour, if you two aren't in bed in ten seconds you'll be sorry."

White-shirts could give out punishments, so George and Rex did as she said, grabbing their scattered bedding and scuttling back to their respective beds. George still had Rex's pillows and he settled down with a grin.

"Miss, I've lost my pillows," Rex replied, looking sheepish.

"Where did you last see them?" Maira replied, sounding exasperated.

"I dunno, they might be under the bed."

"Well find them and put the light out when you do. If I hear another sound I will be back in here dishing out punishments."

The pillows weren't under the bed and Rex genuinely didn't seem to know where they were, so George offered to help look.

"You could help by looking for your own stupid pillows instead of making me do it," Rex said bitterly.

George retaliated by flinging one of his pillows at his friend, hitting him in the back of the head. "There you go, make do with one."

"Don't chuck it at me, then."

"I'm giving you one of my pillows, be grateful."

Rex gave George a giant slap on the back. George was under the sheet, but Rex's palm moved fast enough to sting and leave a red mark.

"What was that for?" George said, springing up again.

"For being a lazy sod," Rex shrugged.

George gave him a shove and he tripped backwards onto his bed. "I'm not the one who nicked the pillows in the first place."

"Yes you are, you took mine," Rex replied, kicking away George's ankle so he fell heavily onto the floor.

The kick hurt, so George tackled Rex again, twisting violently so that Rex would collapse on top of him. Unfortunately this gave Rex the upper hand, and George found his arm being twisted around painfully. He kicked out blindly and managed to catch Rex somehow, giving him the space to wriggle free. He grabbed hold of Rex's ankle and twisted, but not hard enough to cause anything more than discomfort.

The door flew open again.

"Right you two, get out here," Maira shouted, grabbing George's collar. Her nails tore straight through the worn material and she ended up dragging him by the elastic while he grabbed at his throat and flailed around. Maira was an ex-Cherub so she had the strength to pick up both ten-year-olds with ease, but she started by making George stand by the wall while she dragged Rex out by his arm.

"Stand opposite him," she said viciously. A few people were looking into the corridor from the other rooms, wondering what the commotion was, while George massaged his throat and tried to regain his breath and his dignity. The wrecked shirt was doing nothing for him, and he was covered in red marks from where Rex had been grabbing him.

Maira stood between them, hands on hips, giving them both the evil eye.

"You're gonna stand out here the rest of the night, and in the morning you're gonna go and tell the staff exactly why I had to drag you out of your room at one in the morning, right?" she growled, daring them to chat back.

"Yes Miss," George replied meekly.

"Good, now woe betide you if you make even another squeak," Maira finished, pounding a fist into her palm before storming back into her room.

The interest of the other Cherubs died down once Maira left, leaving George and Rex alone in the corridor. George's discipline record on campus was horrendous; he'd been involved in a number of incidents in his four months as a qualified agent, including a alcohol-selling scheme and a botched mission that ended with his head in a bin. He knew that this was a minor incident and that he'd probably get off with nothing worse than a telling-off and a few hours of punishment duty, but all the little things added up.

Nonetheless, he could see the funny side as he sat on the cold floor, looking at Rex who was sweaty with exertion and wondering whether CHERUB was going to reimburse him for his ruined t-shirt.

Croydon, South London

"Keep an eye out," the older boy said, giving Adam a smart smack on the ear. "I'm not risking my neck under here if you're staring into space."

Adam was annoyed that the older boys were treating him badly, but he said nothing. He stood by the bonnet of a flash-looking Mercedes, finished in black, and looked into the darkness. The street was well-lit by streetlight, but Adam kept his gaze on the driveways and front doors of the people living on the street.

The older boy, whose name was Tom, disappeared under the car and began pulling a few tools out of his jacket. A small but powerful torch illuminated the filthy underside of the Mercedes as he grabbed a spanner and began expertly loosening nuts.

"Hurry up," Adam hissed. It was warm enough for him to only be wearing a light jacket, but he still shoved his hands deep into his pockets.

"Shut up then," Tom replied, tutting.

Adam was mainly on the lookout for residents who would come out and bother them, but the street was dead silent at four in the morning and there weren't even any lights on in the windows.

"Alright, got it," Tom replied, sounding relieved. He appeared from under the car and tucked a lump of metal into his jacket. "Have you got the replacement?"

"Here," Adam said, reaching into a carrier bag and replacing a part which looked identical to the one Tom had removed, down to the coating of grime. Tom nodded and crawled back under the car.

Once Tom was back to grunting underneath the car, Adam spotted something out of the corner of his eye. He thought it was a person and his heart shot into his mouth, but a cat wandered lazily across the road a few moments later and he relaxed.

"What's taking the time?" Adam asked, starting to get anxious.

"The mother is too bloody small," Tom replied, his voice on edge. "I can't get the nuts on properly."

"Damien gave it to me, I swear," Adam replied, subconsciously rubbing his tongue through the gap that his missing tooth had left when it had fallen out the previous weekend.

"We're gonna have to swap the old one back on and explain this to Damien," Tom said, appearing from under the car. "There's gonna be hell to pay."

Adam held out the original part, but Tom's expression changed rapidly from irritation to fear. Before he could get the part he turned on his heel and set off at a sprint into the front garden of the nearest house. Adam spun around and spotted two uniformed police officers running up the road towards him, torches in hand.

"Stop!" one of them shouted, but Adam panicked. Tom had disappeared, so he dropped the metal part he was holding and ran in the opposite direction. He turned the corner into the next street, which seemed identical, but he didn't have the guts to climb into someone's garden or jump over a wall. There was a horrible clash of his desire to get away and his desire to behave himself like his teachers told him at school, but before he could decide an arm grabbed his collar.

"You're coming with us," the policeman said, shining his torch in Adam's face. "How old are you?"

"Eight," Adam said truthfully. When Damien had let him go with Tom, he'd said that if the police caught him he should tell the truth about his age and everything would be fine.

"Eight? God's sake, why aren't you in bed?" the policeman said, shaking his head. "Come on, let's take you home and have a word with your mum."

Adam had never been so scared before in his life. When the older boys had talked about getting picked up by the police, it sounded really cool and they wore it like a badge of honour, but now that it was happening to him he couldn't keep the tears in. His mum was going to kill him.


	2. 2: Guns

**2: Guns**

The staff at CHERUB don't go to the Mediterranean with all of the agents, so supervision is left to the training instructors and recently-retired Cherubs. When it comes to punishment, however, the training instructors take over.

"Wakey wakey," Yosyp Kazakov said happily, thumping a boot on the floor painfully close to George's ear. "Time for breakfast."

George sat up and stretched, immediately feeling an uncomfortable stiffness in his back. He'd had enough rude awakenings from Kazakov in basic training that they no longer affected him. The instructor repeated the process to wake up Rex, who was sleeping flat on his back with one of his arms resting up against the wall.

"I hear that the two of you couldn't behave yourselves last night?" Kazakov said, grabbing George by the shoulder and yanking him to his feet.

It was futile trying to make excuses so George just shrugged.

"Come with me."

Kazakov was brutal and George had been expecting a ten-kilometre run with heavy packs or an all-day physical training session in the heat, but instead he took them to the equipment shed at the back of the hostel. It resembled a big garage with a metal door and no windows; George had been in once before to get spare parts for a quadbike that he'd crashed into a tree.

Kazakov flicked on the single electric bulb and took them over to a corner which was piled high with untidy boxes of kit.

"I probably don't need to tell you that this is the paintball equipment," Kazakov said, pulling out a pair of goggles splattered in multicoloured paint. "Some of the older agents were complaining that it was starting to smell, so you two are going to scrub everything until there's no trace of paint anywhere."

George groaned a little. There was enough equipment for thirty people and it was all totally encrusted with old paint. It was a full day's work, if not more.

"Don't like it?" Kazakov taunted. "Fancy a cooked breakfast instead? You should think of that before rolling around like animals in the middle of the night."

The instructor pointed to the boxes again. "One of you can take all of the clothes over to the taps outside and clean them, the other gets to chip paint off the guns and goggles. I'll let you two decide." He let out a happy laugh and handed George the goggles before wandering away, childishly switching the light back off and plunging Rex and George into darkness.

"What do you reckon?" George asked, dropping the goggles back into a box as Rex went to put the light back on.

"I'll do the clothes. The paint will come off easier if it's wet," Rex said.

"I'll do the guns then," George shrugged. "Give me a hand to drag all of this outside, might as well enjoy the sun before it gets too hot."

To make their punishment worse, the white shirts decided to take all of the younger grey shirts on a jet skiing trip. Once breakfast was over, George and Rex had to deal with jokes and mickey-taking from the others.

"I'll try to remember you while I'm blasting across the water on my jet ski," Harry, a Cherub who did basic training with them, said with a smug look. "Although the fact that it'll be totally awesome may cause me to forget."

Rex flicked him off and he laughed. "See you losers later."

Once he'd gone George looked over at Rex. "You know what's weird? I haven't seen Letty or Jemima. I would have thought they'd have been the first ones out here."

"Speak of the devil," Rex said unhappily, taking his arm out of the soapy basin of water and pointing to the girls who were rapidly approaching.

"Hi boys," Letty said with a butter-wouldn't-melt smile. "What's going on?"

Jemima tried to hold in a giggle. "Shouldn't you be getting ready to go jet skiing?"

Letty had been George's partner during basic training and they actually got on quite well. She'd got a tan from the Mediterranean sun and let her curly hair grow out a little, but she could still be as cruel as ever and her American accent wound George up. Rex had been paired with Jemima and the two of them hated each other's guts.

Rex just shook his head and ignored them.

"Why aren't you two getting ready?" George asked, putting down the gun he was working on. "I thought everyone was going?"

"Jemima pulled a muscle in her back when we were doing karate yesterday and she's supposed to rest instead of going on activities. I'm keeping her company," Letty answered. "I've been here like, four times before, so I've done pretty much everything."

George sighed. "I can't believe we're missing the jet skis. We hardly even did anything."

Jemima tutted. "Way I heard it, you two were waking up the entire corridor last night with your humping."

"It wasn't humping, it was sparring," George replied angrily. "Who did you hear from, anyway?"

"Maira told us at breakfast," Letty grinned. "She seemed pretty mad."

"Should've seen her last night," Rex grunted. "She would probably have decked us given the chance."

"Don't know why she didn't, might teach the pair of you a lesson," Jemima chimed in.

"Why don't you just shut up?" Rex replied in an acidic tone. "No-one asked you."

"Why don't you come over here and make me?" Jemima replied. "You're probably too scared that you'd get punished again."

"More like scared of getting his butt kicked by a girl," Letty giggled.

George was getting annoyed with the girls and he was about to open his mouth and tell them where he was gonna stuff the paintball guns, but Letty caught his angry look.

"Come on Mi, let's leave them to it," Letty said, grabbing her friend's arm. "We might as well make the most of the day."

The two girls left, giggling together at a private joke and occasionally looking back and breaking into a fresh round of laughter.

"Yeah, well, what kind of nickname is 'Mi' anyway?" Rex shouted back at them, but it was feeble and George shook his head.

"Come on, let's just get this stuff done before Kazakov or someone comes round and sees us."

Chipping away at dry lumps of pink paint sapped George's energy, and even frequent breaks to gulp down water from the tap and soak his t-shirt, he was way too hot. The shade helped, but as midday arrived George was wishing they'd just gone straight to bed the previous night. Jet skis and the cool water of the sea were all he could think about.

Their only distraction from the work was the occasional visit from Letty and Jemima, who appeared about once every hour to rub it in a bit more. George didn't mind too much, because conversation with Rex was mostly limited to complaining about Maira, and the girls were more fun than chipping off paint, but Rex was slowly getting into a worse and worse mood every time Jemima got at him.

This time they appeared with a giant ice cream cone each, both rapidly melting in the heat.

"You're at least getting somewhere," Letty said, noticing the steadily growing piles of clean equipment. "You'll probably be done by this evening."

George was starving on top of being hot, and he stared at the ice creams jealously. "Any chance of letting me have a bit?"

"Ew, I don't want your germs on my ice cream," Letty said, sticking out her tongue.

"Come on, I haven't eaten since yesterday and it's baking in here."

"Nope. Get your own."

George scowled at her and went back to the pair of goggles he was holding, but after a few seconds the ice cream floated in front of his face.

"Here, you can have this bit," Letty grinned, letting a dollop of half-melted ice cream splatter onto the goggles. "Enjoy."

George sprang up, a fist bunched. "You're just enjoying our misery."

"Exactly," Jemima laughed. "Your misery is the best kind."

George sorely wanted to punch one of them, but he was in enough trouble, so he just grabbed a cleaning rag and wiped away the ice cream, muttering to himself.

However, Jemima pushed it a notch too far when she flicked a glob of her ice cream at Rex. She'd hoped to get it to land on his arm, but he moved at the wrong moment to get at a stubborn patch of paint and the lump smacked him right in the forehead. Letty and Jemima erupted in shrieks of laughter, but Rex totally lost it.

"That does it!" he yelled, jumping up and storming into the equipment shed.

"Ooh, touchy," Jemima grinned. "Not my fault you're being punished."

George wasn't sure what to do, but the girls were being unfair and he felt sorry for Rex, so he got up and went to go and calm his best friend down. Before he could get there, Rex reappeared, holding one of the high-powered paintball guns reserved for the older Cherubs on exercises.

"Throw ice cream at me, huh?" he raged, waving the gun around. "See how you like it."

George dived out of the way as Rex aimed the gun and blasted two quick shots into Jemima's chest, knocking her backwards.

"Stop it, Rex!" Letty shouted, but he swung the gun around and she jumped behind George.

Rex's practice in the dojo had been paying off and George didn't fancy confronting him when he was practically frothing at the mouth, so he darted into the gloom of the shed to grab a similar gun, bumping into Letty as she had the same idea.

Letty had been better at marksmanship during basic training and while George was still trying to fit the ammo clip, she'd taken a well-placed shot and hit Rex in the back just before he was going to fire a point-blank shot into Jemima.

George found himself in a familiar situation. Rex was his best friend and he thought he should be loyal, but the girls were only trying to defend themselves and Rex had overreacted. However, they'd been winding him up all day and when Letty was pulling Rex away, he couldn't resist shooting her in the shoulder.

He realised his mistake when Letty threw him a black look. He was expecting to be gunned down in retaliation, but she just pointed her gun at the stack of clean guns and goggles and covered them all in paint again.

George boiled over and chased after her with the gun, totally ignoring what was going on with Rex. All of his morning's work was ruined and he was going to have to spend the rest of the day cleaning it, plus there were no staff around so nobody would know that Letty was responsible. He tried to shoot her in the back again, but he was running full pelt and the shot skimmed past her and hit the floor.

Letty sprinted into the main accommodation building. George realised that she was being sensible; firing paintballs indoors guaranteed a big mess to clean up, and he didn't fancy paying to replace fittings that got damaged. He lowered his gun, but Letty popped up from behind the reception desk and shot him twice in the chest then once in the thigh.

"Hey!" George shouted, trying to think of something to say. She hid behind the desk again as he fired, leaving his shot to thud into the wall and leave a bright orange mark.

Letty set off for the safety of the rooms upstairs, but George shot her in the back again. She tumbled forwards unexpectedly and George's second shot hit her in the back of the head. She skidded to a halt on the carpet.

"I'm sorry," George yelled, anger forgotten. He threw his gun to one side and jogged over to Letty. "Are you okay? I was aiming for your back."

Letty sat up slowly, looking at her palms where the carpet had burnt them. "I think so. It didn't hurt so much."

George crouched down next to her and winced when he saw the burns on her arms. "Ouch, they look painful."

"You're telling me?"

"You could run them under some water or something," George suggested, holding out a hand to pull her up. "

"We'd better go and find Jemima and Rex first. They're probably trying to kill each other," Letty said, shaking her head and sending drops of paint flying out of her hair.

"Those two probably wish the guns were real," George said, grabbing both guns. "I'm expecting a bloodbath."


	3. 3: Clean

**3. Clean**

Jemima had managed to get her hands on a gun and the two of them had spent a few minutes covering the inside of the equipment shed with paint before they ended up in hand-to-hand combat, which Rex seemed to have won for a change.

When George pulled him off, there were tears streaking down Jemima's face, but she was defiant.

"You only won because my back is injured," she spat towards Rex. "I hate you."

"I hate you too," Rex replied, straining to get away from George.

Letty hauled Jemima away, leaving the boys standing in the shed while Rex calmed down. George took the opportunity to survey the mess.

"You two were really upset," George commented when he spotted just how many spots of paint were covering Rex. "You two need to work out your differences or something."

"Nah, I just never want to see her again. I don't know how you stand her," Rex said, sitting down on a cardboard box. "You know, we're gonna have to clean this lot up?"

"I guess. Well, if we can do it quickly enough we might get away with it," George suggested. "It's all fresh so it'll wash off easily enough, and if they ask why we didn't clean all the equipment we can just say we slacked off and do it tomorrow."

Rex nodded, looking around. "We've probably got a few hours."

It was boring work but George was motivated with a desire not to get caught and so it felt more productive. Once they'd washed all of the paint off their clothes, they managed to get all but the faintest traces of paint off everything and even put away the guns where they'd come from. The missing ammo was a problem but nobody would notice until the next training exercise, and then they'd just assume it had got used somewhere else. By the time that most of the other Cherubs were getting back from the day's activities, Rex and George were back to chipping off old paint. Best of all, the paint that Letty had got on the guns just washed off with a hosepipe, so George wasn't even that far behind.

"Do you think the girls will tell on us?" Rex asked.

George shook his head. "They'd be in just as much trouble as us. Even if you did manage to hurt Jemima, she'll just say she fell over or something."

"I suppose. I wish she would fall over, though, or maybe down the stairs."

"You've gotta be nicer to her. You get into so much trouble because of her," George said. "It's not worth it."

Rex just grunted in reply.

It was dark by the time they finished cleaning everything, and George was pleased that he wouldn't need to go back the next day. The last few guns weren't perfect, but he hoped nobody would care.

"I'm gonna eat as much as I can and then go to bed," George said, catching a whiff of food being cooked. "I've been waiting for this all day."

"Me too," Rex said, grinning as they turned the corner into the cafeteria area.

They queued up with everyone else for lasagne, and George was almost drooling by the time it was on his plate.

"Ah," the training instructor called Mr Pike said, appearing behind them and clapping a hand on a shoulder each. "You two are coming with me for a few minutes."

"Can't I grab something to eat first?" George asked, pointing to his plate. "I haven't eaten all day."

"Nope," Pike said, pointing firmly towards the door.

George put his plate down unhappily. He was trying to think of what he might've done, but the best he could come up with was that someone had spotted the missing paintballs and he was going to get a ticking off. It was only when Pike led them towards the reception at the front of the building that his heart sank.

"So, which of you is going to explain the orange paint on the wall and the green paint on the floor over there," Pike said, pointing to the paint which had dribbled down the wall. "I know it was one of you two so the quicker you own up the less your punishment will be."

George knew he was busted and he was kicking himself for not remembering about the paint indoors.

"Yeah, it was me," George admitted. Rex hadn't been involved and so he left his friend out of it.

"Good to hear you being honest. Fancied a bit of a shoot 'em up on your own, then?"

"It was both of us," Rex said, surprising George.

"Right, well, firstly you're going to go and get some warm water and clean up all of this paint. Then, if you've got time, you can grab some food before packing your stuff."

"Huh?" George asked. "We're leaving?"

"Yup. I'm going back to help with a problem with a new recruit, so you two are coming with me. Consider yourselves officially kicked off the hostel trip," he said, smiling. "The plane's leaving at nine this evening so you'll have to hurry if you want to eat."

"Is that our whole punishment?" George asked as Pike turned to go.

"Oh, I expect you'll get more when you're back on campus," Pike replied, "But that'll be a nice surprise."

Rex went to get some hot water and George examined the damage. It wouldn't take long to clean, but losing over a week of their summer holiday really sucked. Cherubs had to go to lessons during the summer to help catch up, and George was not looking forward to sitting in double science thinking about how he could be sitting in the sun if he'd just managed to behave himself for two weeks.

"Let's get it over with," Rex said when he returned, handing George a sponge.

"Why'd you own up to it?" George asked, dunking his sponge in the bucket.

"It was pretty obvious it wasn't just you by yourself, but if I kept quiet it would have got Letty into trouble."

"I thought you didn't like her?"

"I don't really, but I suppose I'd rather only have one girl who wants to kill me."

Less than twelve hours later George found himself sitting in his handler's office for an 8am dressing-down, watching rain dripping down the window.

"So, it's been left to me to hand out a punishment," Rose Cameron said. She was a short ex-Cherub who'd chosen to be a handler instead of a training instructor, but judging by the way she looked at George he guessed that she'd dearly love to dunk his face in some puke.

"Firing paintball guns indoors without safety equipment, waking up half of the hostel with your stupidity, as well as a heavily damaged quadbike. You know, you never seem to learn your lesson," Rose said, shaking her head.

George didn't reply. He had no idea how trouble managed to keep finding him.

"Now, when I was your age, I think the most effective discipline was running laps. Don't you agree?" she asked.

"I suppose so."

"Right. Cleaning toilets is boring and disgusting, but there's something about having aching legs and sore feet every day that really gets you down, not to mention the time it takes you to run. However," Rose paused, looking straight at him. "I need someone to do something this weekend, so you get the choice. Fifty laps, or spend your entire weekend accompanying one of our mission controllers to a conference."

"Why would a mission controller need me to go to a conference?"

"I have no idea, but I'm told it'll probably be extremely boring and so you should consider it a punishment. Make up your mind."

If George ran ten laps a day he'd probably not lose too much time out of his day and he'd get the weekend off, but he had nothing planned for the weekend and with all of his friends at the hostel, he didn't really want to be moping around in his room.

"Conference it is," George shrugged.

"Excellent. I'll let them know," Rose said, making a note on her laptop. "You'll probably get called into the mission preparation building or something to discuss it. And it's not an excuse not to do your homework, so that won't wash with me."

"Yes Miss."

"Good. I don't want to see you in my office again, understand? If you're back in here before you turn eighteen, it's a one-way ticket to a thousand laps."

George studied her face to tell if she was joking, but her expression was normal; looking at him like he was an idiot, which he supposed he pretty much was.

"Yes Miss."

"Out you go. Close the door on your way."

George was in the same geography class as Rex, which was basically empty because most of their classmates were at the hostel. While they waited for the teacher, George asked Rex about his punishment.

"I have to clean the paintball equipment here on campus," Rex moaned. "It'll take all day Saturday after lessons."

"Well at least you get Sunday off," George shrugged. "I'm off to some kind of conference with a mission controller, it was that or fifty laps."

"I would've taken the laps," Rex shrugged. "Then you'd get the weekend off."

"Don't fancy running in the pouring rain," George replied.

Rex nodded. "Anyway, so you're telling me you won't be here on Sunday?"

"Yeah, I expect I won't be back until the evening. Why?"

"The only bright spot of my week was gonna be a whole day of PlayStation or something… now I've gotta just sit on my own all day," Rex complained. "Thanks for deserting me."

"Do homework or something," George grinned. "I'm gonna be having hotel room service and a giant bed."

"They'll probably just stick you in a Travelodge," Rex replied as the teacher walked in. "Cold sausages and corn flakes for you."

Their geography teacher was a fifteen-year-old navy shirt called Will who George's older friend Michael hung around with sometimes. He stood at the front and grinned.

"Ah, I hear you two were kicked out of the hostel? Good work, only took you what, six days," he laughed. "I heard something about indoor paintballing."

"Pretty much," George replied glumly.

Will shook his head. "Well, cheer up! Since it's just the two of you, I've decided that you might benefit from an extra essay to put you ahead of the others in the class. How does that sound?"

"Come on, give us a break," Rex complained. "I thought it was gonna be a video or something."

"I'm not much happier to be here than you two. I missed the hostel, but at least I get to go on the ski trip," Will said, sitting down in a chair facing them. "Tell you what, though, if you can get through both worksheets in today's lesson, I'll let you off the essay and downgrade it to an easy work booklet. How's that?"


	4. 4: USA

**4: USA**

The weather improved as the week went on, and by Friday afternoon the sun was shining and those Cherubs who were still on campus were enjoying the last gasps of the summer.

George had taken his geography homework outside to do by the lake. It wasn't particularly hard but colouring in all of the diagrams was time-consuming. Normally he would have done about a page of work before getting distracted by a game of football or by talking to Letty, then left the rest of it for Sunday night, but there was no-one around and he actually got nearly all of it done.

"George Knight?" a voice said from behind him just as he was trying to decide whether to colour a waterfall in blue or leave it white.

"Yeah?" he asked, looking over his shoulder and seeing a balding man holding a briefcase, dressed in a dark suit.

"I'm John Jones, one of the mission controllers," the man replied, smiling but looking out of place in the middle of the grass.

George scrambled to his feet and brushed the grass off his combat trousers. John relaxed a little and they shook hands.

"I tried your phone," John said as George gathered up his work.

"Oh, I left it charging in my room. If I have it with me when I'm trying to work I just play games," George replied, smiling sheepishly. "Sorry."

"That's okay. Thankfully your handler guessed that you'd be out here," John replied, walking with George back to one of the paths that wound their way around the lake. "We're in a hurry, actually, so can you meet me at the carpool in five minutes?"

"Yeah, no problem. Do you need me to bring anything specific?" George asked, feeling a slight rush of excitement despite the fact that it was supposed to be a boring conference.

"We're heading up to Manchester so bring something to entertain yourself with in the car, plus two sets of smart clothes," John said professionally, checking his watch. "Remember that nothing with the CHERUB logo on it goes off-campus, so you'll need to change."

"No problem. I'll see you in five," George said, making sure he had a firm grip on his books before setting off as a brisk jog towards the accommodation building.

John was waiting by the desk in the carpool when George arrived, now wearing a black sweatshirt and carrying a rucksack with his clothes in.

"Got your toothbrush?" John asked with a smile.

"Yeah," George replied, patting his bag. "Got everything."

John handed over a form to the lady behind the desk, who read it quickly before swapping it for a set of keys from the rack behind her. "I'm jealous! Have a good trip," she said with a smile.

George didn't understand why she was jealous until John led him over to a huge Bentley, finished in black with tinted windows.

"Now this is more like it," George grinned, throwing open the passenger door and jumping onto a luxurious leather seat.

"Don't leave any marks," John warned, "This is usually the car the chairwoman uses and I had to get special permission."

"No problem," George said, depositing his bag into the footwell and reclining his seat as John pulled the driver's seat into position and started the engine. George was used to the London rat run and CHERUB trips in clapped-out minibuses, so the purr of the engine was a thrill.

John concentrated on navigation until they reached the A-roads, where he relaxed a little and got the big car up to speed while George played with the air-con and the various comfort settings.

"I'm sorry there wasn't time for a formal briefing, but this is all last-minute." John said, pointing to the glovebox. "There's a short bit I managed to type up this morning in there. This has all been so last-minute, I wanted you to come into my office for an hour so we could really go over everything, but you'll have to make do."

George retrieved the folder, which was the same as the ones that real mission briefings came in. He felt another wave of excitement, but instead of the usual wodge of paper, there was a single sheet.

**CLASSIFIED**

MISSION BRIEFING FOR GEORGE KNIGHT

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED WITH A RADIO

FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION TAG.

ANY ATTEMPT TO REMOVE IT FROM THE MISSION

PREPARATION BUILDING WILL SET OFF AN ALARM.

DO NOT PHOTOCOPY OR MAKE NOTES.

_CHERUB's US Relations_

_The United States does not have a version of CHERUB of its own. In the past, Americans within the CIA and FBI who know of the existence of CHERUB have occasionally requested our assistance with operations that their adults cannot complete. These have included roles as varied as looking after the children of major international dignitaries and infiltrating a maximum security prison._

_The Procedure_

_Due to increased demand for the services of CHERUB agents by the US security services, CHERUB staff have implemented a formal procedure for vetting agents and missions prior to them being considered by the ethics committee. This process includes a face-to-face meeting between the senior American staff on the mission and the agents involved, which takes place off-campus to maintain security. Often the Americans will not have any prior knowledge of CHERUB and it is imperative that agents make a good impression._

_CHERUB Agents' Nationalities_

_Due to the legal complexities of CHERUB, agents can only be accepted from the British care system and not from overseas. Agents do not require British nationality but due to the fact that most CHERUB missions take place within the UK, agents who will blend in to the general population of the UK are more useful than those who do not. In the past, potential agents have been rejected on these grounds. However, it is often helpful to have agents who can operate overseas without appearing 'foreign'; for example, agents of Western descent are very conspicuous in China, so agents of Asian descent can carry out roles that they cannot._

_US Citizenship_

_The American government currently does not allow US citizens to participate in espionage activities for foreign countries, with the exception of joint operations. As such, any agents recruited into CHERUB who are US citizens are required to take British citizenship, although this is more of a formality than anything else as agents take on false personas whilst undercover and can easily pretend to be US citizens._

_The Exception_

_There is one agent on campus who has not followed this rule. By mid-2005, there were more and more plans for CHERUB agents to operate in the United States, and it was becoming clear that an agent who could specialise in working with the Americans would be a great asset. An agent with US citizenship, LETTICIA KATZ, had recently been recruited after her parents were killed in a car accident in the UK and her family in the US could not be traced. It was decided by the authorities at CHERUB that she should retain her US citizenship and begin to specialise in US missions once she had qualified as an agent in 2010, and as a result, her natural American accent was not corrected as is usually the case for agents with non-British accents._

_Letticia's Career_

_Letticia passed basic training at the first attempt and has shown herself to be a capable agent on a recent mission in Norfolk. As such, CHERUB staff have decided that she should be allowed to undertake her first mission co-operating with the Americans. This mission is planned to take place in late 2010. If successful, she will have paved the way for future operations of a similar nature, greatly strengthening links between CHERUB and the US security services._

_The Conference_

_The mission has experienced some unexpected developments which mean that time is of the essence when it comes to getting an agent into place. With Letticia away in the Mediterranean, the usual rule of a face-to-face meeting has been waived and replaced with a face-to-face meeting between representatives from the CIA and a suitable CHERUB agent who knows Letticia well. It is important that this agent give a true impression of Letticia._

George looked up from the sheet when he was done, noticing that the speedometer was touching ninety.

"Questions?" John asked, pulling out to overtake a lorry.

"Was this set up before you knew I was going to be sent home early from the hostel?" George asked.

"We were planning to send someone else, possibly someone who was also on her last mission, but when you landed on our doorstep it was too good to overlook," John replied. "So don't worry, we didn't get you sent home or anything. That was all your own fault."

George grinned. "So what do I actually have to do at this conference?"

"Basically you just have to listen to what the Yanks have to say and answer all of their questions truthfully. We obviously want to show Letticia in a positive light, but it is absolutely vital that you don't exaggerate or make anything up. I've never met Letticia so I won't be able to contradict you if you tell them she's a sky-diving expert when she's never jumped out of an aeroplane before. If you tell them something untrue, it could seriously endanger the mission, if not her life."

"Makes sense," George nodded.

"We could probably actually get the Q and A over with in one afternoon, but the CIA have a reputation for being thorough and I expect that on Sunday, they'll want to meet with you again without me there. Just remember your training and if you get into difficulty, refuse to say anything until they let me talk to you."

"Roger."

"However, the US government is paying for our hotel and food, so we're booked into a five-star and we can eat wherever you like," John smiled.

"I could get used to this VIP treatment," George laughed. "Much better than basic training."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll end up sleeping in some pretty horrible places during your time as an agent," John replied, pulling onto the motorway.

It took a little over three hours to get to Manchester, but once they were there they booked into the hotel and after a ridiculously expensive meal in the restaurant, George had a thirty-minute shower before settling down in front of the TV while John made calls and caught up on some work on his laptop which was to do with a different CHERUB mission, so George wasn't allowed to listen in.

"Do you want to do some practice questions?" John asked when he was finished, reaching over and muting the TV. "It'll let me find out some more about Letticia that I don't know just from reading her file, plus it'll give you experience."

George groaned. "What happened to my life of luxury?"

"You can have that when we're finished," John said. "Now come on, just remember to answer truthfully. Firstly, in the time that you've known Letticia, what-"

George held up a hand to interrupt. "Well, the first thing you should know is that she calls herself Letty."

John made a note on the file. "Is that with an 'i' or a 'y'?"

"A 'y', I think."

George tucked into a packet of Skittles he'd got from room service as John continued asking questions.

"In the time that you've known Letty, what would you say her strengths are?"


	5. 5: Potential

**5: Potential**

The Americans didn't arrive at the hotel until nearly lunchtime, which suited George because it meant he could lounge in front of the TV all morning watching whatever he liked while John rang campus, the US embassy, a secret CIA number and, bizarrely, his daughter. George guessed that the call to his daughter probably wasn't related to the others.

"They'll be downstairs in five minutes so we'd better motor," John said anxiously. "I've worked with the CIA dozens of times but you never know what kind of mood they're going to be in."

George didn't share the mission controller's worries and he took a few seconds to pocket a packet of sweets before following John.

It was clear that the Americans had dressed to impress. The two huge-looking agents were wearing imposing black suits with matching ties and even had the earpieces that George had seen in films. The only things missing were the sunglasses.

"Paul Johnson," one of them introduced himself, crunching George's hand in a tough handshake.

"Troy Royston," the other said with an even more vice-like handshake.

"John Jones, and this is George London," John replied, swapping handshakes too. Since George didn't legally exist, John had said that they were going to use a false name.

"Great. Have y'all eaten yet?" Paul said, glancing around.

"Not yet," George replied, grinning.

"How about we get some chow? We've been over to some Chinese place just round the corner and the manager is gonna seat us in a private area," Paul added, checking his watch this time.

"Sounds good," John smiled, following the two Americans out of the lobby. George admired the way that they'd planned ahead and set everything up, and he was even more pleased that he'd be getting another huge meal.

"So, you're what they call a Cherub, huh?" Troy said once they were seated and had plates of food in front of them. "I've read hundreds of reports on you guys but I've never actually met one in the flesh."

"Well, you're the first CIA agent I've met," George replied after swallowing his mouthful of noodles. "So I suppose we're even."

Troy let out a booming laugh. "Well said, kid."

Paul smiled over at George. "So, we've got all weekend to grill you about our operation, so how about you just let us get to know what Cherubs are like? Been on any good ops?"

George shrugged. "I'm allowed to tell you about my training and stuff that happens on campus, but all of our missions are top-secret."

The Americans looked put-out for a moment, and John flashed George another worried look, but Troy just tore apart a chicken wing and grinned.

"I guess that's sensible. We're not about to tell you what we're up to either," he replied.

John smiled. "I'm glad we've got an understanding. Now, before we begin, I gather you'd like to speak with George alone tomorrow?"

Paul nodded. "It's standard CIA practice. We've gotta speak to the agent alone, just in case there's something dodgy going on with their chaperone. In this case I don't think it matters, but y'know."

John nodded. "That'll be fine."

"So," George started, waving his fork as all three men looked over at him, "Why exactly do you wear those earpieces? Who are you listening to?"

Troy roared with laughter and clapped George on the shoulder from across the table, jarring loose the vegetables from George's fork so that they landed in his drink.

The agents loved George and they seemed to find the idea of a child spy amusing, so George obliged them. Throughout the afternoon the pair of them kept throwing out questions, but George worked out the system pretty quickly. Paul was asking the important questions, such as how much martial arts training he had and how proficient he was with computers, while Troy tried to throw him off the scent with irrelevant questions about whether he'd been to Disneyland or what his favourite kind of ice cream was. John didn't say very much, but occasionally intervened with answers when George didn't know or when it was too technical.

"Do they talk to everyone like that?" George asked once they were back in the hotel room, holding back a laugh.

"How do you mean?" John asked, running his fingers through his thinning hair in front of the mirror.

"One person asking real questions and the other one trying to cover it up," George explained. "It's wasn't very subtle."

John grinned. "Well, it goes to show that Cherub agents are above-average intelligence that you spotted that so quickly. I think those two are used to dealing with ordinary members of the public, not highly-trained agents."

"What do you think they'll ask tomorrow?" George asked, throwing himself onto the comfortable bed and stretching out, feeling full from the all-you-can-eat but still finding space for some extra fruit gums.

"I'd expect them to try and ask more in-depth questions about campus and basic training," John said. "Remember not to give anything away about missions that you or anyone else have been on."

"Well the only mission I've been on was a total bust, so I don't normally go around telling anyone, let alone the CIA," George smirked. "I'll keep it in mind, though."

"Don't let them get to you and if in doubt, keep your mouth shut," John added, more sternly. "I can rescue you at any time."

"No problems," George shrugged. "I've had all the standard training about being interrogated."

In the end, the Americans seemed to have taken a liking to George and didn't pressure him too much. That or they didn't like the idea of turning the screws on a ten year old, but George didn't mind either way. Instead, he kept the pair of them entertained with funny stuff that had happened on campus and spent an hour answering their questions about Letty. In basic training they'd warned him about getting too friendly with someone who was questioning you, in case you accidentally let something slip, but George knew he could handle it. Most of the questions were just about what he'd done in training, anyway.

"I think that's pretty much it," Troy declared after a few hours. They'd taken George to a seafood restaurant and he'd stuffed himself again, so he was feeling lazy and would've preferred to stay in his seat for a few more hours.

"Awesome," he replied, giving the Americans a double thumbs-up.

"Thanks for being co-operative," Paul said, exchanging a handshake with George. "I'm sure your friend Letty will let you know all about the mission once it's over."

"Maybe," George shrugged. "We're not supposed to tell each other about our missions, but details always get out."

"If we ever need you Cherubs again, I'll make sure to ask for you," Troy chuckled. George liked Troy with his constant laughing and his friendly manner, and the idea of a mission in the US sounded amazing.

"Please do," George said enthusiastically, sending Troy into another peal of laughter.

"Better get ya back to your mission controller," Paul said, leaving a pile of notes on the table for the waitress before scraping back his chair and checking that he had all of his notes together. "Good meeting you."

"You too," George said, pulling on his jacket and following the two agents out, feeling cool as the few customers sitting in the main part of the restaurant stared at him and his companions.

John had packed all of George's stuff from the hotel and they set off straight away.

"How was it?" the mission controller asked as George settled back into the luxury car.

"Piece of cake," George shrugged. "It was just stuff about training and Letty."

"Makes sense," John nodded. "I'm glad it went okay. I spoke to them afterwards and it seems like the mission will go ahead, if Letty agrees."

"Since when has an agent turned down a mission?" George laughed. "Anyway, doing this got me out of fifty laps, so I'm happy."

John cracked a smile. "I heard about your poor discipline from your handler. It's only a matter of time until you're out running again. If not, I'm sure I can arrange a crash fitness course to work off the calories you've been guzzling all weekend."

George looked shocked. "Really?"

John laughed and pulled out into the fast lane. "Don't worry, I'm not that cruel. But don't let your handler know you've had such an easy time, she'll probably punish you just for fun."

"Is she really that mean?" George asked, stretching his legs out and slumping in his seat.

"Oh, she can be. I've heard stories," John replied cryptically. "Just behave yourself and I'm sure you don't need to worry."

They arrived back on campus just after the others came back from the hostel, looking tired from the flight. George took pleasure in coasting past in the Bentley, even though the tinted windows meant nobody could see him anyway.

Once he'd grabbed his stuff and said goodbye to John, he jogged to catch up with Jemima, Letty and Beatrice, who were dragging their suitcases back towards the main building.

"Hey," he said, smiling. "How was the rest of the trip?"

"Pretty good," Letty replied, hugging him with her free arm. "Where did you just get back from?"

"Mission," George said nonchalantly, enjoying the shocked look on the girls' faces. "Well, sort of. It was more of a conference thing, only for the weekend."

Letty shook her head. "You get kicked out of the hostel in disgrace and end up bagging a weekend conference trip."

"Five star hotel, as much room service as I could get and three huge dinners," George teased.

"Well we got a week in the sun," Letty replied, rolling her eyes. "We went water-skiing and Beatrice got to go scuba-diving."

Beatrice looked smug. "They only let the best swimmers go."

"Can't believe I missed it," George said, feeling sad that he missed out on the fun.

"I bet Rex is gutted, he's one of the best swimmers of our age" Jemima said, sounding happy. "Hope he's feeling miserable."

George shrugged. "He got cleaning duty for his punishment, so he's probably not in the best mood." He turned to Letty. "Anyway, guess what?"

They'd arrived at the main building and the girls had joined the queue for the lift.

"What?" Letty asked, trying to see how long the queue was and not really paying attention.

"I heard that you might be getting a mission soon," George shrugged, watching her expression change from annoyance to excitement.

"What? A mission! You _have_ to tell me!" Letty said, trying to grab his jacket. George stepped out of reach and laughed.

"Yup, maybe a few weeks away," he added. "Got all of the inside details, too."

"Tell me! Tell me!" Letty whined, trying to step round her suitcase to get after him.

"Don't feel like it."

"I'll beat it out of you!"

"You'll have to catch me," he replied, sprinting towards the stairs with his much lighter bag. Letty chased after him at first, but when Jemima yelled at her for leaving her suitcase, she turned around.

"I'm gonna smack you so hard when I see you next," Letty said, poking out her tongue before turning on her heel and marching off.

"I'll look forward to it," George replied, still laughing at he climbed the staircase to his room, wondering whether she would actually hit him, because when she put power into it her punches really hurt.


	6. 6: Trust

**6: Trust**

Letty had kept badgering George about the mission, but George told her it was top-secret and refused to say anything. After a while she got bored of beating him up and assumed it was some kind of joke, but George knew she'd be in for a shock when she got the yellow plastic card that gave her access to the mission preparation building.

His own immediate future, however, weren't looking very good. The staff had noticed that he hadn't filled in a form which asked what subject he'd like to teach younger kids; usually Cherubs were automatically assigned something, but George didn't have any particular outstanding talents and they'd given him a choice of a few. He was supposed to have handed the form back to his handler, but he'd conveniently lost it amid all of his worksheets from lessons and nobody had ever chased him up about it. But now they'd found out about the gap in his timetable and he found himself getting up at eight on a Tuesday morning to help some of the youngest Cherubs read picture books.

After an hour of trying to help one kid work out how to say the word 'balloon', George was feeling fed up. The only thing that cheered him up slightly was that once he'd tidied away the chairs, Letty was waiting outside for him.

"What's cracking?" he asked, pulling the door shut behind him.

"You look cute with the little kids," Letty grinned.

"Don't remind me, they can be sooo stupid," George groaned.

Letty shook her head. "Cherubs are always amongst the brightest for their age. Most kids their age would be struggling with 'cat' and 'dog'."

"Whatever, no need for the lecture," George smiled. "Anyway, what're you doing here so early?"

"I have my voice coaching in the mornings," Letty replied. "I'm sure I told you."

"Probably, but I don't remember," George shrugged. "Go on then, let's hear something."

Letty thought for a moment. "Tally ho, just going in the lift to my flat with some fish and chips."

George grinned. "Not bad, actually You almost sound like a native."

"I would hope so, I've been practicing three times a week since I was about eight."

As they followed the path that headed from the classroom block to the main building, they stopped a let a group of girls with wet hair past, who were all carrying bags full of damp sports kit. One of them looked at George and stopped.

"You're George Knight?" she asked, brushing her dark hair out of her face. George thought she looked vaguely familiar.

"Yeah, why?" He asked, trying to work out where he'd seen her before.

"I'm Michael's girlfriend, Lucy," she explained, smiling at Letty. "Sorry to bother you, can I borrow George for a minute?"

"Sure," Letty replied, smiling back. "I'll see you at lunch or something."

"Okay, see you," George replied as she set off, then he looked back at Lucy. "What's up? How's Michael doing?"

They set off walking again, but this time it was across campus towards the junior block.

"He's fine," Lucy replied. "He's settled into his mission but he thinks it'll last a while longer yet."

"That's good. I told him I'd email but I kept forgetting."

"I'm sure he doesn't mind. Anyway, I've been trying to get hold of you, but your phone keeps going straight to voicemail."

George shrugged. "I lost it a while ago, I think I accidentally put it in the laundry or something."

"Didn't you realise sooner?" Lucy asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I never use it," George said indifferently. "I'm not really bothered."

"Well, okay, anyway. I'm supposed to ask you about some kid called Rex Reynolds?"

"Oh, Rex? What do you want to know?" It sounded suspiciously mission-related and George felt jealous that Rex was being asked after instead of him.

"What's he like? I mean, would you get on if you went on a mission with him?" Lucy asked, giving up on brushing her hair out of her face and quickly tying it up into a ponytail.

"Yeah, we get along okay. He's got a bit of a temper but nothing I can't handle," George said. "Why, is he getting a mission?"

"Maybe," Lucy replied, holding a finger to her lips to shush him. "I've been helping set up a mission but we need a couple of eleven- or twelve-year-olds to make it run smoothly. You interested?"

"Me?" George asked. "But I'm only ten."

"You got a glowing recommend from another mission controller, which is why you're on the shortlist. We can doctor your age and put you into secondary school, so don't worry. If you're interested I'll put in a good word with the mission controller and see if I can get you and Rex onto the mission."

"Of course I'm interested," George grinned. "What's the mission?"

"I can't tell you yet, but it's going ahead as soon as possible so you won't be waiting long," Lucy promised. "Anyway, I've gotta dash."

George waved goodbye as she jogged off towards the mission preparation building and he turned towards the main building, already feeling the pre-mission excitement building up.

The briefing was set for first thing on Friday morning, which got George out of combat training. Instead of rolling around on sweaty gym mats, he had a leisurely breakfast before dressing in his smartest Cherub uniform and collecting Rex before they headed over to the preparation building together.

Their instructions were that they had to go to a office of some mission controller he'd never heard of called Julian Richardson. It was tucked in a corner, and judging by the outside, was one of the smallest. Rex knocked and a voice told them to come in.

The office was only big enough to fit a filing cabinet, desk and a few chairs, which didn't leave much room for manoeuvre. To make things worse, one side was filled by a kind of indoor tree which had dropped leaves all over the carpet.

"Nice to see you! Sit down, make yourselves comfortable," the man sitting behind the desk said. He was dressed in an expensive-looking suit and George assumed he was the mission controller, so he and Rex settled into the only two chairs. The third one was occupied by Lucy, who gave George an encouraging smile.

"Right, well," the mission controller said, leaning forwards with his elbows on the desk. "I'm Julian Richardson, but you can call me Jules. You probably all know each other so I'll leave you to find out more about each other in the coming weeks, assuming you accept the mission. The folders are on the desk."

It was a bit of a squeeze all getting up to grab the folders, and George felt a thrill as he flipped open the cover and felt a nice long briefing inside.

"If you've got any questions, shout 'em out," Jules said, resting his feet on the desk and tilting his chair back until it touched the curved glass window.

**CLASSIFIED**

MISSION BRIEFING FOR GEORGE KNIGHT

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED WITH A RADIO

FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION TAG.

ANY ATTEMPT TO REMOVE IT FROM THE MISSION

PREPARATION BUILDING WILL SET OFF AN ALARM.

DO NOT PHOTOCOPY OR MAKE NOTES.

_Car Theft in the UK_

_Nearly 50,000 cars are reported stolen every year in the UK. There are various reasons that thieves take cars, from bored teenagers or young adults stealing cars for joyrides to high-end sports cars being stolen to order and then exported, often to poorer countries with lax import controls. With cars representing many people's most valuable possession, the police are always ready to apprehend car thieves, and with increasingly advanced security technology and road cameras, more and more criminals are being caught. The typical sentence for a car thief ranges from six months for a joyrider to five years imprisonment for organised gangs._

_Organised Car Crime_

_While stolen cars can be sold on for large sums of quick money, people are often reluctant to purchase stolen vehicles for use in the UK due to the strict monitoring and licensing of vehicles. Thieves are much more likely to export the cars illegally or break them down for their parts. As such, docks and scrapyards are often monitored for illegal activity of this type. Due to the more advanced security that many modern cars come with, stealing a recently-made car is not very easy and thieves are often experienced, which makes catching them even more desirable. Often it is nearly impossible for a sole thief to steal a car and sell it successfully; they require contacts to aid them, which is what the police are targeting._

_Croydon_

_Croydon is a large town in south London and forms a metropolitan borough. During the Second World War, much of central Croydon was destroyed in bombing, and it wasn't until the 1990s that Croydon really began to be regenerated. New shopping centres and high-rise buildings transformed the town centre into the second-best place to shop in London and brought upmarket employment and housing to the area. Now it has a number of excellent schools and housing areas and has left much of its past behind. This has led to a number of expensive and desirable cars appearing on Croydon's streets, which has only boosted the trade in stolen vehicles in the area, with easy public transport and road links between Croydon and other areas of London._

_Adam Pershore_

_In early August, an eight-year-old boy called Adam Pershore was caught by police at the scene of a suspected car theft. However, police investigating the case noticed that instead of the usual signs of attempts to break into the car, such as scratches around the doors or windows, the car was left intact. There was also a component of the exhaust system lying on the ground near the car, which appeared to have been removed from the car and replaced. It seemed as if the thieves had been performing repairs free of charge. Adam was highly co-operative with police and, although he refused to give details on who his accomplice was, explained how the system worked._

_The Crime_

_An employee of a local garage would send a message to Adam, who would go and collect a package from a location such as a park. This package contained expired or damaged components for a car which had been identified in the local area. Adam would then be expected to go to the given location at a certain time with the part, where he would meet with another boy who had the technical expertise to swap the broken part for the part on the car. The older boy would then take the good part away and Adam would receive some payment at school. For the incident when he was caught, he revealed that he was going to be paid five pounds. Presumably, the owners of the car would discover the problem whilst driving, take the car to a garage where it would be replaced by a mechanic and evidence of the crime would be erased, with the stolen part being sold illegally or even fitted to another car._

_The Theory_

_Police have speculated that the enterprise is being run by the owner or operator of a repair garage locally, who would have easy access to spare parts and would also profit from the car owners bringing their cars in for repair. A garage which has been known to handle stolen parts and even stolen vehicles has been identified as a possible culprit, but the case has extremely little evidence. Adam is below the age of criminal responsibility, so he was released after giving a statement, and when the police have investigated similar incidents, the thefts are always carried out by children or teenagers who will receive relatively light sentences and are easy to intimidate, meaning that they are unlikely to give away information about who is running the operation. Indeed, despite the police's best efforts, Adam did not give up the names of anyone else involved._

_CHERUB's role_

_Detectives in Croydon have been unable to solve the problem with so little evidence. At best, they could tail someone involved and come up with a cache of stolen parts, but the garage owners would deny responsibility and the sentences for anyone caught red-handed would be light. The police are hoping for something more substantial which will crack the organisation entirely._

_The case was passed on to a senior detective in the Metropolitan Police who has had dealings with CHERUB in the past. The hope is that CHERUB agents might be able to infiltrate the organisation and find evidence which the police can use to make a string of prosecutions._

_The Mission_

_Three agents will be placed into a house in Croydon, living with the mission controller who will pose as a wealthy divorcee who recently moved to the area. Two younger agents will be placed in a local school which is suspected to be where children are 'recruited' to assist in the thefts. An older agent with good knowledge of car mechanics will, posing as a step-sister, attempt to secure a job in the garage and infiltrate the organisation from the top._

_The police have produced a list of local children expected to have links to the organisation, but there is not enough evidence to make these links concrete. It is thought that any children of secondary school age who hang around and show a willingness to take risks will probably be approached before long._

_THE ETHICS COMMITTEE ACCEPTED THIS MISSION ON A 4-1 VOTE BUT REQUEST THAT AGENTS CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:_

_(1) This mission has been classified as LOW RISK. While car theft has been linked with violence, it is not widespread and it is unlikely that agents would be in any degree of danger during the mission._

_(2) The mission concerns motor vehicles, so all agents must undertake a basic driving course. Agents are reminded that they should not attempt to drive at excessive speed or in a dangerous manner to prevent injury to themselves and others._

George looked up and was embarrassed to find that everyone else had finished reading.

"So, are you up for it?" Jules asked, tilting his chair forwards again. Everyone nodded and he broke into a smile.

"How long do you think it'll last?" Rex asked.

Jules drummed his fingers on the desk. "It depends on how much evidence we can get, but it's a small-fry mission so I'd guess it'll be over by Christmas. We're not talking about a major international terrorist, probably just some local crook."

"When do we go?" George asked, itching to get on with it.

Lucy answered. "First week of September, in time for the new school term."

"Can't wait," George grinned.


	7. 7: Cars

**7: Cars**

In the week before the mission started, Lucy and Jules were kept busy with the final preparations for their moving in, while George and Rex were sent for CHERUB's basic driving course. Usually agents took it when they were eleven or twelve and tall enough to reach the pedals, but because it was organised at the last moment George and Rex found themselves alone with Lucy, who was going to be their instructor.

"Normally you'd get an instructor, but they're all busy with basic training and most of the others who normally run the course weren't available at short notice," Lucy explained as they drove over to the RAF airfield that they were going to use for practice. The car was one of the battered old ones that had been a learner car for so long that there was an ancient copy of the Highway Code in the back of all the seats.

When they pulled onto the expanse of the runway with nothing else in sight, Lucy turned in her seat and looked at the two boys in the back.

"You fancy a demonstration? I haven't been out here in ages," she asked.

"Demonstration of what?" Rex asked.

"You'll see," Lucy replied, revving the tiny engine as hard as possible before setting off at maximum speed, which wasn't particularly fast. George had spent his life going on the tube or on buses so the burst of speed was an odd feeling, but Rex didn't seem at all concerned.

Lucy drove the length of the runway with her foot flat on the floor, before suddenly pulling into a handbrake turn which sent Rex flying into George and tilted the car onto two wheels. It veered around before landing again and carrying on in the opposite direction. By the time Rex had composed himself again, Lucy spun the car around, engaged reverse, drove backwards for a while before flicking it back around pulling to a halt.

"That okay?" she grinned. George was massaging his ribs where Rex's elbow had hit him and Rex looked like he was going to be sick.

"Are we going to learn to do that today?" George asked eagerly. "It was so cool."

"Not today. I doubt even CHERUB's advanced driving course would teach you this," Lucy replied. "Anyway, Rex, if you're gonna hurl, you can get out."

"I'm fine," he replied weakly. "Just wasn't expecting it."

"Where did you learn, then?" George asked, leaning between the front seats enthusiastically.

"Not telling you, today you're supposed to concentrate on the basics," Lucy smiled. "Anyway, quickest way to learn is to do it, so George, you sit here. Rex, you don't look up to it just yet."

Once in the driver's seat, George was a little intimidated by the huge wheel and the pedals. Even with the seat all the way forwards, it was hard to push them all of the way down.

"Alright, press down on the clutch, on the left, then slowly lift while pressing gently on the accelerator, on the right," Lucy explained. "You'll probably get it wrong a few times, but I've got my own set of pedals over here so don't worry. This car's seen enough of it before."

George tried letting off the clutch but pressed down too hard on the accelerator and got nothing but a squeal from the engine for his efforts.

"Again, less accelerator."

His second attempt was a success and the car began rolling forwards. He panicked and moved both feet off the pedals, so it came to a stop again and stalled.

"Don't worry," Lucy said, taking the car out of gear and pointing to the key. "Off and on again, then we'll have another go. We've got all day."

While driving was frustrating at first, George quickly realised that he had a knack for it and by the time it was getting dark, he was barreling around the twisty lanes that surrounded campus like he'd been born doing it.

"You're both basically solid now," Lucy said as George pulled up outside the campus gates. "Ideally you'd have another few days to practice, but we don't have that luxury. The good news is that once you learn it, it's like riding a bike."

George couldn't wait to get back out on the roads, especially in something a little bit faster than the learner car, but Rex didn't seem too bothered.

"I think Terry Campbell, the technical guy on campus, is gonna give you the crash course on car mechanics before we leave tomorrow," Lucy explained. "I'll drive this last bit, parking can be tricky and I don't want to have to explain how we pranged the chairwoman's car."

They were taking a van down with all of their stuff in the next day. The move was supposed to look as authentic as possible, so George had packed most of his clothes and pretty much everything else he owned. His phone had magically appeared at the last minute in a pair of trousers that were buried deep under his bed.

"Ready to go?" Lucy yelled through the door after knocking a few times.

"One sec," George replied, trying desperately to force another pair of socks into his suitcase. "You can come in, it's not locked."

Lucy stepped into the room and shook her head when she spotted his suitcase bursting at the seams.

"Here, you sit on it and I'll zip it up," Lucy offered, leaving her own suitcase near the door. "Why don't you have a bigger one?"

"Never have," George replied, standing on top of the suitcase while Lucy managed to get the zips to close. "They gave me this one after basic training."

"Whatever, it doesn't matter," Lucy replied, picking up the heavy suitcase without much effort. "Let's make a move."

With two heavy suitcases they decided to wait for the lift instead of attempting the stairs. It was fairly quiet anyway with most Cherubs being at their lessons.

"Aren't we getting Rex?" George asked.

"He's gone ahead with Jules. They're taking the van with last bits of furniture," Lucy explained. "Which means that we get the car."

"Sweet," George grinned. "What is it?"

"It's only a little Volkswagen; we're not supposed to be super-rich or anything," Lucy shrugged. "But it's had some modifications to make it go like the clappers if you need it to."

"Can I drive?" George asked enthusiastically as they stepped into the lift.

"Of course not. Cherubs your age normally haven't even done the basic driving course, so we're not taking the risk of having you pulled over by the police," Lucy smiled. "But if Jules is okay with it, we can probably go out on some of the roads in Croydon at night."

The drive to south London was pretty straightforward and Lucy had a printout of the directions taped to the dashboard in case they got lost. The original plan was to follow Jules and Rex in the van, but trundling along at fifty mph got boring fast and so Lucy overtook and got the car up to a comfortable cruising speed of eighty.

"So, you never told me why it is that you can drive so well," George asked, looking up from his phone. "You said you would."

Lucy looked over and smiled. "I'll tell you if you give me one of those mints first."

George had brought a packet of extra strong mints for the trip, and although they came out of his pocket money, he didn't mind giving one away.

"Alright," Lucy said, settling into the middle lane of the motorway. "Well, before I came to CHERUB, my grandfather used to work on a farm. Instead of going to school, I just helped out, feeding the animals and stuff, but once I was big enough I used to be allowed to drive some of the machinery like the diggers and tractors and stuff."

"My grandfather passed away not too long after and I started going to school, but once my mum died and I came to CHERUB, I told someone about being able to drive tractors and that info worked its way up to some of the senior mission staff. Anyway, while I was preparing for basic training, I suddenly found myself on a few driving courses with grey and navy shirts. I was pretty much as good as any of them, but it was only after basic that they told me why I was being taught to drive when I was so young."

"Sometimes when missions go wrong, an agent has to be pulled out at very short notice. Being picked up by an adult is often suspicious, especially if it's not plausible for the mission controller to be involved. So CHERUB always has one very young agent, typically between ten and fourteen, who has advanced driving skills and can be sent to any part of the country in an emergency to extract someone. That was me, until I got too old. If anyone happened to see inside the car or if we got stopped, we just claimed to be old school friends and the mission wasn't compromised. Although, usually if the police started following, I could outrun them."

"That's so cool," George laughed. "Police chases and busted missions."

Lucy nodded. "It wasn't always fun and games, though. Once, when I was twelve, I had to evacuate two agents from a mission up in Scotland and I got chased around the streets of Glasgow by some absolute nutters with shotguns. We only lost them when we hit a straight patch of motorway at the English border and got up to one hundred and eighty."

George was in awe. "I wish I could do that…"

"It's usually an agent who could drive before they got to CHERUB. I helped train my successor, actually, although I don't think he's as good as I am," Lucy smirked. "Anyway, even though I'm too old to plausibly be a schoolfriend of ten- and eleven-year-old agents, I still do occasional driving missions. I'm hoping to be a racing driver or something when I leave."

"Can you take me out sometime in a really fast car? Does CHERUB have any supercars?" George asked, already imagining doing two hundred mph on the motorway without any chance of getting caught.

"No. CHERUB has a couple of fast cars, but they're very discreet. And I'm only supposed to drive quickly in an emergency, so no late-night trips I'm afraid."

"Shame," George smiled. "Anyway, can you teach me?"

"I occasionally do the advanced driving courses but usually I'm too busy with schoolwork or a mission. It'll probably be a recently-retired agent," Lucy shrugged. "If you're really interested, you're best off having a word with Terry Campbell and seeing if he can get you onto an advanced course."

"The advanced courses sound really cool," George said, reclining his seat. "I hope I get to drive again soon."

Lucy smiled. "A kid after my own heart. I once got to go out on a racetrack with a truck driving champion to get experience driving HGVs; it was the best fun ever."

George grinned. "I'm glad you're on this mission. Some of the older agents can be really bossy and mean."

"I can be mean too. Just wait until we're fighting over the shower."


	8. 8: Nerves

**8: Nerves**

They found the house easily enough and parked the car on the driveway. Jules had all the keys, so they walked to a nearby supermarket to get milk and other essentials while they waited for the van to arrive.

"Feeling nervous yet?" Lucy teased as they walked back.

George shrugged. "I don't normally get very nervous, but I'm definitely feeling it."

"I get them before every mission," Lucy replied, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Even small ones like this."

"I really want to do well on this mission, otherwise I'm gonna be stuck with crappy missions forever," George shrugged. "It probably doesn't matter too much to you, since you've already got your black shirt."

"I suppose that's true," Lucy said. "Anyway, the nerves will die down after a couple of days when you get into the routine, they always do."

It was the last Saturday of the school holidays, so although it was overcast and threatening rain, most of the local school kids were outside having kickabouts or sitting in the park. George fancied joining in and thought it might allow him to make some useful friends for the mission, but Lucy didn't want to carry everything back by herself, so he didn't stop. Rex and Jules had arrived by the time they got back to the house and Jules was carrying their suitcases inside.

"Alright, there's three bedrooms, so Rex and George, you're sharing," Jules informed them as George grabbed his suitcase and ran up the stairs. "There should be a bunk bed or something."

The first room George tried was the master bedroom, but the second one had a metal-framed bunk bed. He threw his stuff onto the top bunk and kicked off his shoes as Rex arrived.

"Looks like this is it," Rex shrugged, opening the wardrobe and noting the lack of space. "What do you reckon?"

"You can have the space under the bed if I get the bottom of the wardrobe,"

George shrugged. "Doesn't bother me too much."

"Awesome," Rex replied, unzipping his suitcase.

"I'm gonna go down and get some of the biscuits we just bought," George replied, jumping off the bed and rattling the floorboards.

Lucy and Jules were in the kitchen making tea when George got down there.

"Ah, George," Jules said, punching him in the shoulder awkwardly. "Good to see you. I'm gonna make a run over to buy bedding and other stuff, is there anything you two need for your room?"

"I've only seen it for a minute or so," George replied. "I think we're pretty much fine once we've got pillows and stuff."

"Great. There are bikes in the garage and your school uniforms are somewhere, so you'd better try them on," Jules nodded. "School starts on Monday so once the house is in shape you can probably go for a look out, see where things are."

"No problem," George replied, opening the packet of chocolate digestives and taking a handful.

"Let me know if you need anything," Jules replied, picking up a mug of tea that Lucy had just poured as George made his way back towards the stairs. "Just make sure you two help Lucy unpack everything."

Most of the furniture had already been put into the house, so it was only stuff like the TV that needed setting up. Jules was posing as a businessman who worked in the city and had recently divorced his wife, leaving him with their three adopted children. Their surname for the mission was going to be Samson. Lucy, Rex and George had all been enrolled at the local secondary school, which, George discovered, had a relatively plain uniform with a black jumper and grey tie. He'd heard stories from some of the other Cherubs about orange and yellow monstrosities, so he was pleased that he wouldn't look like an idiot on his first day at a new school. He and Rex were in Year Seven and were even in the same tutor group, but Cherub had doctored their school records so that he would be placed in lower sets than Rex for stuff like maths and English.

Since he'd been in Year Five when he'd been recruited into Cherub, George had never been to a secondary school before. He woke on Monday morning with a dull churning in his stomach and cornflakes seemed like a bit of a challenge.

"It'll be fine, you'll fit right in," Lucy said, chomping on a piece of overdone toast. "Local London kid like you, I'd bet you're throwing apples at the teachers by lunchtime."

"Is it really rough?" Rex asked. He was in the same boat as George, but he'd grown up in a wealthy area and his fears for starting a new school were much more real than George's.

Lucy shrugged. "Maybe. If it is, you just need to act the same way to fit in. You've passed basic training so you'll be fine."

"Anyway," Jules interrupted, clapping his hands after finishing his toast. "I'm off to work. Remember to lock the house and if you need anything, ring my mobile."

"What is your job?" George asked, drinking the last of the milk out of his bowl.

"Asset manager. It's basically just sitting on my backside all day, and if they fire me then I'll just get assigned another job, so I'm looking forward to many coffee breaks," Jules grinned. "Anyway, I'll be back by half five so I want to hear good things."

The Cherubs waved goodbye as he sauntered out of the door, taking the car with him.

"I'd better get a shift on too," Lucy added. "I've gotta walk to school so it'll take me twice as long as it takes you."

"We'll come with, we can probably just kill time at an off-licence or something," George shrugged, finishing his orange juice. "Might bump into someone useful."

The school had more than 2000 pupils and George's first impression was of a gang of lads smacking an unfortunate kid in the side of the head with a football and laughing at the muddy smear that it left.

"Nice place," Rex said quietly as they consulted a sign to try and find their form room.

"Don't worry," George replied. "Anyway, I think we're at the top of the stairs or something."

"We could ask someone?"

"You don't just ask people for directions," George grinned. "That's how you get smacked."

Their form room was where George had guessed. The first thing he noticed was that some of the other Year Sevens were dressed neatly like he was, with their hair combed and their shirts tucked in, but a group at the back who were sitting on tables and laughing loudly already looked untidy. George instantly decided that they were the kids to get involved with, but Rex was still nervous so they sat together in the middle, not committing to anything straight away.

"Alright, welcome to East Lane," their form tutor said as he came through the door, looking confused as he searched through a pile of photocopied sheets on the desk. "There's supposed to be timetables here somewhere but I can't find them."

Nobody said anything, although the rowdy kids at the back had settled into their chairs at least.

"Someone go to the office for me… you," the teacher said, pointing to Rex. "Go to the office and ask where the timetables for form 7-b are."

George knew Rex would have no idea where the office was, but he could offer nothing more than a shrug as Rex got up and headed for the door.

"Okay, other than that," the teacher began, picking up a pen and writing on the whiteboard, "My name is Mr. Foster, nice to meet you all. To break the ice we're all gonna stand up in turn, tell everyone our names and say one interesting thing about ourselves."

George hated dumb games like this, and apparently so did the rest of the class, who collectively sighed or slumped in their chairs.

The well-behaved girls sitting on the front row took it seriously, telling the class about how their cat had given birth to four kittens or how they'd received an award for a drawing they'd done last year. When it was George's turn, he introduced himself as George Samson and said he supported Queen's Park Rangers. He got a few dirty looks from the boys at the back, but he just grinned at them.

When the scruffy kids took their turn, they took the mickey, making up obviously fake names and winding up the teacher. He eventually threatened them with detention and they settled down again.

Rex returned with a pile of timetables a few minutes later. Classes on campus meant that George was used to five or six lessons a day, so the five lessons on his timetable were easy and even double maths didn't bother him. He found, by comparing his to Rex's, that they were in about half of their lessons together.

First thing was Chemistry, which was in one of the science labs on the ground floor. George waved goodbye to Rex, who was in a different set, but was pleased to see a few of the lads from the back lining up for the same lesson as him. He deliberately hung back and searched through his bag until the teacher let them into the room, when he spotted a spare seat with the kids he wanted to get friendly with.

"Mind if I sit?" he asked, doing his best to sound like he wasn't bothered.

"Why don't you sit somewhere else?" a skinny kid with big teeth replied, getting sniggers from his friends. "There's loads of space at the front."

"Don't wanna sit with the geeks," George shrugged, sitting down regardless.

The skinny kid looked annoyed, but nobody questioned George. They got new exercise books and George worked out that the kid next to him was called Oliver.

"Got a pen or something?" George asked him. He had two working pens in his bag, but he thought it was an easy way to break the ice.

"Yeah," Oliver replied, passing over one from his pencil case. "No pens on the first day, did you oversleep or something?"

"Nah, I put some in my bag last night but my sister probably nicked them just to make me suffer," George shrugged. "I'm George, by the way."

"Ollie. Your sister older or younger?"

"Older."

"Ah, that's tough."

They didn't talk much through the lesson, but George sat next to Ollie in the next lesson too and by breaktime, their conversation was flowing.

"Just moved here with my step-dad and my sister and brother," George explained. "I have literally zero idea what goes on after school."

"Well, if you fancy drawing pictures of flowers, there's art club, or maybe you could join sewing club and make a nice quilt," Ollie grinned.

"I meant outside of school," George replied, spotting Rex and waving him over. "Anyway, this is Rex, my brother."

"You don't look anything like each other," Ollie said, looking from one to the other.

"We're adopted," Rex explained. "We used to share a room in the children's home."

"Ah, rough life, huh," Ollie said. "Anyway, you seem cool, I'll introduce you to some of my mates."

George exchanged a smile with Rex. He had no idea if Ollie was connected to the gang they were supposed to be infiltrating, but making friends was hard on any first day and they seemed to have made a connection.


	9. 9: Friends

**9: Friends**

Any worries that George had about not being able to find the right people to be friends with evaporated when Ollie led them to a group of kids sitting on the steps outside one of the classrooms. They were all dressed untidily and seemed to be aged between eleven and thirteen or fourteen, and they obviously knew each other from outside school.

"Guys, this is George and this is uh, like, Red or something," Ollie said, pointing to them.

"Rex," Rex corrected him.

"They just moved here so they were wondering what goes on around here."

One of the older boys cracked a laugh. "Depends what they're up for."

"Pretty much whatever," George shrugged. "Our dad works late so he never knows what we're up to."

"You're related?" an Asian kid with bulging biceps beneath rolled-up sleeves asked. "Don't bloody look it."

"Adopted," Rex said. "Not exactly our fault."

"Not exactly our fault," the Asian boy repeated, mimicking Rex's posh accent.

"Is it cool if we hang here? I don't exactly know anyone else," George shrugged.

Everyone either didn't respond or just murmured something, so George took a seat on the steps with Ollie. Rex went to sit next to him, but the Asian boy stuck out a leg.

"Sorry, posh boy, my legs are there," he said, grinning.

"Give over," Rex said angrily.

"Sit over here," the only girl in the group said, pointing to an open space next to her. "Wasim is retarded, you're best off away from him."

Rex went off to sit with her and George stretched out. The concrete steps were far from comfortable but it felt good to be sitting with other people instead of by himself.

"So," George asked Ollie, "What's the deal with those guys you sit with in lessons? They seem like idiots."

"They mostly are," Ollie shrugged. "I know them from primary school. They're all mouth, threaten them with a detention or a letter home and they'll do anything you say."

"Are they cool?"

"Some are. They're the types with parents who buy them Xboxes and tell them to be back by five, though, so they're not much fun."

George felt someone kick him in the back, but when he turned around to see who it was and tell them to get lost, it was Wasim and he looked friendly.

"George, if you want we're gonna go to the park after school. You in?" he asked.

"Why not?" George smiled.

"Don't bring your brother though, he seems like a complete nerd," Wasim said, looking over at Rex. George noticed that he was talking with the girl about something and they seemed to be getting along.

"He's pretty cool," George replied.

"Whatever."

Ollie leant over and whispered into George's ear. "Wasim is just an idiot. If he wasn't always splashing his cash, we'd never be friends with him."

George didn't see Rex for the rest of the day at school, even at lunchtime. When they had geography last thing before going home, Rex sat away from him with the girl he'd been speaking to earlier. George thought that Rex might've been upset because he didn't stand up to Wasim, but he didn't get the chance to talk to him and he put getting friendly with Ollie ahead of trying to patch things up with Rex.

He told Ollie he was going to go home and get changed and that he'd meet back up in the park later. Rex's bike was already gone, so the first chance that George got to talk to his best friend was when he got back to grab a drink and some food.

"Hey, I'm sorry about earlier," George said, spotting Rex standing in the kitchen. "I didn't know he was gonna be like that."

"Don't worry," Rex smirked. "Guess who I was talking to?"

"I saw you talking to that girl," George replied.

"Yeah, but guess what?"

"What?" George grabbed two chocolate bars and pocketed them, already bored by the conversation.

"Her dad owns the local scrapyard," Rex said, sounding pleased with himself. "Bet you didn't know that."

"So what?" George shrugged.

"The mission? He definitely has connections, so if I get friendly with her I'll be able to bug his house or something," Rex said, stuffing his mouth full of biscuits.

"Oh, yeah. I suppose," George said defensively, feeling competitive about the mission. "I bet the guys I'm talking to are the ones who do the dirty work, though."

Rex was too busy munching biscuits to reply, so George took the stairs two at a time and quickly changed into jeans and a t-shirt, ditching his school uniform on the floor and grabbing a jacket for when it got colder later.

"I'm off to the park," he shouted at Rex on his way out.

"Whatever," Rex replied just before George slammed the door.

The local park was basically a knackered patch of grass between two housing estates, and when George arrived on his bike he was wondering whether he'd gone to the right place, but Ollie waved him over.

"It's crappy but what do you wanna do," Ollie shrugged. "We usually just wait until it gets dark, but that's ages at this time of year."

George put his bike down next to Ollie's. "Sounds cool to me."

"The older kids will come later, but there's usually a good kickabout until then. You play?"

"Obviously," George grinned.

"Well you can be on my team until I know how good you are," Ollie smiled. "Where's Rex?"

"He stayed in. Probably going to go and see his new girlfriend," George laughed.

"Oh, you mean Georgia?" Ollie asked. "She was at my primary school. She's fun, but her dad is a complete nutcase."

"Really?" George replied. "How so?"

"Oh, he doesn't like Georgia mixing with kids he doesn't like the look of, which is exactly why she does," Ollie shrugged. "We're never allowed to go near her house or anything."

"Looks like Rex's chances are pretty much zero then," George smirked. "Anyway, you brought a ball?"

Ollie produced one from his bag. "First to five. But trust me, if you're bad, you're gonna be on the other team later."

When George had lived with his mum, he'd always been told he had to be back before it got dark, and if he turned up even a few seconds after the streetlights switched on he was liable to get a smack and be grounded for a week. At CHERUB there were strict punishments for even the slightest rule-breaking, but now he was on a mission he had total freedom. It was gone eight o'clock before he finally made his way back home, huge grass stains all over his clothes. Ollie had gone home at six but George stayed out playing with some of the older kids, who all loved him after he'd toppled a sixteen-year-old with a sliding tackle.

"I'm back!" he yelled once he got in, kicking off his muddy shoes and going straight to the kitchen to gulp down water.

"Nice one," Jules replied from the living room.

George filled a glass and drained it before filling it again and sauntering through to the living room, where Rex and Jules were sitting watching something on TV.

"How'd it go?" Jules asked, muting the television. "Make any useful friends?"

"I suppose," George said. "They seem the type to be involved in dodgy stuff, but they didn't say anything about it."

"Hmm," Jules replied, scratching underneath his shirt. "The summer holidays is always a big time for youth crime, so I would have expected them to be telling each other about it or something."

"It said in the briefing that they're told never to discuss it," Rex added.

"True. Anyway, if you don't think they're the ones, keep an eye out for any others. We know that some of them from your school are doing it."

"Roger," George said. "Anyway, much else happen?"

"Rex's new friend Georgia is the daughter of the man who owns the local scrapyard," Jules said, putting his feet up on the coffee table. "We actually overlooked this in the briefing because we expected Georgia to be going to a local grammar school, but she must have changed her mind at the last minute."

"Apparently he's a huge snob and won't let any riff-raff near his daughter, so I've been acting posh to get his trust," Rex added.

"You don't really need to act," George grinned.

Rex ignored him. "We went back to her house and he seemed okay with me being there, so long as we stayed downstairs. We just listened to music and stuff, but I might be able to get more access in the long run."

"Good work," Jules said happily. "We're definitely getting somewhere, and it's only the first day of school."

"Where's Lucy?" George asked, "Upstairs?"

"She's still out. I got a text from her saying she'd met some of the blokes who work at the garage and was ingratiating herself, so it's useful work at least," Jules replied. "The original plan was for her not to go to school and just try and find work there, but a local told us that it's strictly mates only and if she was hanging around for no reason she might get in trouble."

"I suppose she's the professional," Rex said. "Her end of the mission is gonna be the important one, anyway."

"I'll talk to her when she gets in," Jules said, getting out of his chair. "You want any food, George? Rex and I had microwave pasta, but we ate it all."

"Food sounds good," George said. "I can probably fix it if it's just microwave stuff."

"Awesome, help yourself to anything," Jules smiled. "I'm off upstairs to get changed and have a shower, don't cause a racket."

By the time Lucy got back, George's eyelids were drooping. He wanted to stay up and listen to her briefing, but she insisted on actually cooking some real food before she said anything and George couldn't be bothered.

"See you in the morning," he said, heading up the stairs.

"Night," Jules said. "I'll fill you in tomorrow."

Once he'd cleaned his teeth and climbed onto the top bunk, George had expected Rex to have given in too, but apparently he was still downstairs. George switched off the light and got under the brand new duvet, feeling pleased with how the mission was going. If the mission went well, he was guaranteed to get some other good ones in future. He could almost imagine Letty's jealousy, but then he remembered that she'd already been on one mission and she had another one coming up, so he ignored it and rolled over, falling asleep before he'd had time to think very hard about school the next day.


	10. 10: Garage

**10: Garage**

The rest of the week flew by before George knew it. He knew he needed to focus on the mission and he hadn't heard anything more about cars from his new friends, which suggested that he should be looking around at school for anyone else who might seem involved. The only problem was, George was enjoying himself going out after school and he didn't really want to do any work. Thanks to his lessons on campus, he was ahead in his schoolwork and found it all easy, and since it was George Samson getting detentions for not doing homework, not George Knight, he didn't bother to do very much of it, preferring to sit in front of the TV or play games on his laptop.

When he dragged himself out of bed on Sunday morning, it occurred to him that his life on the mission probably wasn't very different to how his life would have been if his mum hadn't died. He was going to school like normal, hanging out with his friends like normal and even living in the same city. The only real difference was that he shared a room with Rex, but that wasn't so bad anyway. Thinking about his mum gave him a pang of sadness in his stomach, but he shrugged it off by having an extra-long shower with a bumper session of TV planned for the rest of the morning.

Unfortunately for George, he wasn't the only one who thought that he was finding the mission a little too easy. When he stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, Jules was waiting.

"Ah, George, just the man I wanted to see," he said. "Put some clothes on and come downstairs."

George was half-expecting Ollie to call on him later in the day, so he picked trackies and a shirt he didn't mind getting dirty before strolling downstairs to see what Jules wanted.

Jules was sitting in the kitchen with his laptop plugged into the mains.

"Take a seat," the mission controller said, pointing to the dining chair opposite. The tone of his voice made George realise that something wasn't quite right, so he sat down smartly.

Jules turned the laptop around and George read what was on the screen. It was an unfinished email that Jules was writing to a senior mission controller on campus.

"This is to my supervisor," Jules said. "It's the current mission report. I have to complete one every week to let campus know what's going on here. I want to send it, but there's a problem."

"What's that?" George asked, getting the impression it was his fault.

"I've put in a paragraph about Lucy; she's getting friendly with the guys who run the garage and she's even done the occasional odd job for them. It's only a matter of time before she gets something more permanent, but she's already getting odd rumours and bits of useful intelligence," Jules explained. "Rex has been back and forth from Georgia's house and we're starting to find out her dad's schedule. It's obvious he's up to something dodgy so Rex is perfectly placed to find out what that is. On the other hand, there's you. What am I supposed to say that you've achieved? I haven't heard any useful intelligence from you, apart from that you're friendly with people you suspect might be involved. Do you have any evidence?"

George shook his head. "Not yet, but-"

"I know it's your first mission but we need something more than guesses. Are you finding it hard to make friends?"

"No, but-"

"Then what's the problem? If your current friends aren't the type, use your training and find the ones we're looking for. Cruising through the mission and letting your fellow agents do the hard part just isn't acceptable."

"I'm not letting them do the hard part," George replied hotly. "I'm working just as hard as they are."

"Doesn't look like it. If I can't put anything in my report, people will wonder if your role on the mission should really continue," Jules threatened.

"Look, if I flunk this mission then I might as well leave CHERUB. They already think I'm unreliable and with a big mission down the toilet, it'll just be crappy stuff from here on, if they even decide to let me stay," George pleaded. "I'll find something, definitely, I just need time."

"Then you should know better than anyone what this means and what you need to do," Jules said. "I'll cover for you this week, but you've got seven days to come up with something just as good as what Lucy and Rex have got, otherwise I will be telling them the truth."

"Thanks boss," George said, smiling. "I will get something, don't worry."

"Don't force it. Just stick to your training," Jules replied, slapping the lid of the laptop down. "Anyway, you can start getting back into my good books by making me a cup of coffee. Then you're gonna get in touch with whoever and get invited out for lunch or an afternoon kickabout, whatever you have to do."

The weather got worse by about lunchtime, which ruined any chances of George seeing anyone from school. If he had a PlayStation he might've invited Ollie round, but he didn't, so he just stayed in his room where he wasn't in Jules' way. He was eventually interrupted by Lucy knocking.

"Hmm?" George said, looking up from his laptop.

"Jules said you'd be in here. Listen, I'm off down to the garage again today. If you fancy it, you can come with. I'll make up an excuse about being forced to look after you, and you never know, you might spot something I've been missing."

"Why not? Got nothing to do here." George rolled off the bed. "Let me just put my shoes on."

"No problem. I'll be outside in five minutes."

The garage did MOTs and general repairs for a huge swathe of Croydon and south London, so there was a respectable frontage where the mechanics hung around, wearing clean overalls and drinking coffee out of cardboard cups. Lucy pulled into an alleyway next to it and followed a narrow lane round the back, which opened out into a tarmacked area. There were two scruffy-looking mechanics, who George guessed were about Lucy's age or older, sitting in the back of a rusty van and drinking tea out of chipped mugs.

"Hi guys," Lucy said, parking the car and stepping out. "How's it going?"

The mechanics waved back as George got out, doing his best to play the younger brother by looking a bit bored.

"Had to bring my little bro," Lucy said, pointing her thumb at George. "Pain in the arse, but my dad wasn't letting him hang around the house for a minute longer."

One of the mechanics, a bald guy with acne on his neck, dropped the end of his cigarette into his mug and laughed. "It's alright, just so long as he doesn't stick his hand into any moving parts."

Lucy smiled. "Don't worry, this one's my protégé. He's watched me work on my dad's car enough times that he can probably do most of it himself now."

George grinned as the mechanics looked over at him with a new-found respect.

"You're into cars?" the bald one asked, putting his tea down on one side.

"Yeah," George replied. "Not much I can really do, though. Nobody ever lets me near 'em."

Lucy sat down between the two mechanics and begged a cigarette, which she lit and took a long drag on. "Don't tell anyone but I've let him drive a couple of times. He's not too bad, when he's not stalling or crashing into a tree."

George felt a little embarrassed as the mechanics erupted into laughter.

"You're bloody crazy, Lucy," the other mechanic said, putting down his tea and wiping his hands on a rag. "Letting a little kid out in a car. Anyway, I've gotta get back to work."

Once he'd gone, George sat in his place and kicking his legs against the rusting hulk of the van.

"This is Damien," Lucy said, pointing to the bald mechanic sat next to her before tapping the ash from the end of her cigarette onto the floor. "Damien, this little guy's George."

"Nice to meet ya," Damien said, stretching out a grease-stained hand. George shook it and felt weird; adults didn't usually shake his hand.

"So, what goes on around here?" George asked, looking around. The area was big enough to fit twenty cars with space to spare, but there was nothing there except for the decrepit van and lots of tyre marks. "You just come out here when you're on a break?"

Damien laughed. "Perceptive, huh? Nah, this place is dead in the middle of the day, unless you're poor like me and have to work every day of the week to keep paying your rent, or you're desperate for a job like your sister."

Lucy just smiled. "Got me there."

"What about at night?" George asked. "Surely nobody comes to get their car fixed then?"

Damien just laughed and Lucy gave him a '_just how stupid are you_' look.

"None of the public get their cars fixed at night, but there's always work, if you know what I mean," Damien said. "I won't say no more in case you go shooting your mouth off to your mates and the police come sniffing."

"Fair enough," George said. "I'm no grass, though."

"Well, your sister is solid so I can believe that," Damien said. "I gotta get back to work though, so I'll speak to you later on."

Lucy waved as he wandered back to the main part of the garage, leaving George alone with Lucy.

"He blatantly fancies you," George laughed once he was gone.

"Oh, I know," Lucy replied. "I'm trying to encourage it so he'll put in a good word for me with the blokes who run this place."

"What did he mean about the stuff they do at night?" George asked.

Lucy shrugged. "I don't know for sure, because me asking more questions or turning up unannounced is just asking for the mission to be blown up. As far as I can tell, it's just low level criminal stuff; fitting false plates to nicked cars, repainting stuff they shouldn't be, making repairs to drug dealers' cars, that kind of thing. It's an easy way to hear lots of stuff and I'd bet my last pound that the stolen parts we're interested in come through here, or at least someone here knows about it," she explained. "Damien's been singing my praises to the guys in charge, so I'm hoping that by next weekend, they'll be desperate for a girl who's handy with a car."

"Lucky you," George said. "All I've got so far on the mission is an earful from Jules."

Lucy blew smoke in his face with a grin. "That's your fault for being lazy. Just be glad Jules is a pussycat at heart; some of the other mission controllers would have roasted your balls by now."

"I suppose. Anyway, if it's gonna be dead boring all day, I'm gonna go for a walk," George said, looking around at the empty tarmac.

"Nah, the others will be on their break in a second. I'll introduce you to the rest of the guys," Lucy said. "Then you can probably make yourself useful by running to the shops to get milk and stuff. If you show your face, whoever runs the whole kiddie operation will be more likely to trust you."

The next break was for lunch, and Lucy introduced George to a whole group of hairy men who spent their lives messing around with the workings of cars. Most of them were middle-aged guys with wives and kids to support, and they just waved hello before tucking into their sandwiches and chatting about a particularly tricky electrical fault on a Citroen they were working on. Thankfully, Lucy was more friendly with the younger crowd of guys just out of school or college who were eating crisps and downing energy drinks, talking about some kind of race that had been going on the previous night. A pair of brothers who introduced themselves as Callum and John were the best; they kept George entertained with stories about car chases they'd heard about and stories from when they were at East Lane school. George thought they were the coolest guys ever. Callum had dropped out of school at sixteen and had spent the past two years working with his older brother, John, who'd spent two years at a local college learning how to fix cars before getting the job at the garage. John had taught Callum everything, and they spent their spare time fixing up old cars and selling them.

"So, you can fix cars?" John asked, draining the last drops from a can of Coke. "Unusual for a kid your age."

"I've just watched Lucy and stuff," George replied, not wanting to sound too knowledgeable. "I can probably do the basics."

"Lucy knows what she's doing," Callum added as John drop-kicked the empty can over the nearest fence, making George laugh.

"Here, we've got a job for you," John said. "Come with me, we'll leave the lovers alone."

George noticed that Lucy was giggling at something one of the other mechanics was telling her and he briefly wondered what Damien would make of it. Lucy was still going out with Michael back on campus, but he was sure that Michael wouldn't approve of the way she was touching the guy's arm.

John and Callum led him into the workshop, which was empty apart from a few guys lying underneath a dark blue car which was jacked up.

"Here lads, got a surprise," John said, banging on the side of the car. Damien appeared from underneath the car and nodded to John.

"Let this little kid have a go. He says he knows what's what and he might be able to use his small hands," John said, pointing George towards one of the roller trays that he could lie on.

Damien followed George under the car.

"The older guys have been having a go at this one all day," he explained. "It's got some dodgy wiring somewhere underneath, but we can't work out where, and the only way to get at it is to remove half of the chassis. The bits with the yellow tape are the points we want to test, you think you can get your hands in?"

George shrugged. "I'll have a go."

"Top man. I'll give you the instructions, you just do what I say and try not to get your fingers trapped anywhere."


	11. 11: Snob

**11: Snob**

After fixing the problem of the day in the garage, George was on everyone's good side. He spent rest of the day doing various jobs for the mechanics, buying food from the shop round the corner and constantly putting the kettle on. He felt like a bit of an idiot and he wanted something more interesting to do, especially since Lucy spent all her time sitting around at the back, smoking, but she told him that he was doing well and after what Jules had told him, he felt like he needed to at least put in the effort.

The best part was that John and Callum were perfectly happy to totally ignore the health and safety regulations and let George loose with various stuff that they were working on. He liked sitting in the driver's seat and revving the engine the best, but they also let him do work on the cars, although he had to duck out of sight every time the boss or a member of the public were around. George couldn't get enough of the two brothers and they seemed to like him too, spilling the dirt on the older mechanics who occasionally complained about George and telling him funny stories about the teachers they'd had during their time at school. When Lucy finally got bored of flirting she came and fetched George, and he was reluctant to go.

"Don't worry, your sister will be back pretty soon, I'm sure," Callum grinned. "You're welcome back any time."

George exchanged high fives with them before following Lucy out to the car.

"You seem to be getting along pretty well with those two," Lucy said, reversing and heading out the way they'd come in.

"Yup. They're really cool," George said.

"It's safe to say that you can come back whenever, but I'd steer clear for a few days just so you don't seem to keen. I can probably bring you back sometime next weekend, but I'm still hopeful to get a full-time job and then you can just come with me whenever I have a shift."

"What about at night?"

"We'll see. I don't want to force anything, especially since it seems to be going so well at the moment."

Jules was pleased that George was finally making progress and edited the progress report accordingly. George had been expecting plenty of praise for his good work, but when Rex got back, it turned out that he'd spent the day at Georgia's and he'd been busy.

"Apparently she didn't really have many friends at school," Rex said over dinner, which was lasagne. "Her dad is pleased that she gets on with me, especially since I'm not one of the dodgy types who he doesn't like."

"Do you have any good access to the house?" Jules asked.

"He has an office on the first floor which I've been past plenty of times. It's not a particularly big house, but it's just the three of them there. Her mum is disabled and is literally never out of bed, but her dad is out of the house half of the time. So long as Georgia is busy, I can do what I like. Could easily plant bugs."

"No point planting bugs, this isn't a big enough mission," Jules replied. "Anyway, it's good that you've got such good access. The police have no evidence that he's involved in the car side of things, but he's obviously a crook and he could be handling the stolen parts."

"Even if he's not, evidence of his other criminal activities is good," Lucy added. "He's been over to the garage once or twice to do deals, but they're always in the main office which I can't hang around without being suspicious."

"Anyway, when it rained this afternoon, I went one better," Rex said, a smug look on his face. "I told Georgia I wanted to put my bike somewhere dry, but their house is carpeted, so she went and opened up the garage for me. The place is jammed full of unmarked cardboard boxes, and when I pretended to accidentally knock one over with my bike, it had a bunch of electrical wiring in it." He took another mouthful of lasagne.

"Did it look like it came from a car?" Jules asked, his fork paused halfway between the plate and his mouth.

"It looks pretty similar to the stuff we were working with back on campus. I'd need a second look, but I'm sure I can get back into the garage if I need to," Rex said.

"If it's stuffed full of parts, it's a great starting point. They could easily be stolen, and if we can find the parts that the kids get given, we'd crack the mission wide open," Jules smiled. "Excellent work, Rex."

George ate in silence. He was jealous that Rex was outperforming him on the mission even though he'd just got lucky by making friends with Georgia. Lucy seemed to sense this and smiled encouragingly at him.

"Well, I think all parts of the mission are going smoothly," she said. "George has done a great job today and Rex, you seem to be on fire. If this keeps up, we could be done and dusted in just a few weeks."

"What we really need," Jules said, pointing his fork meaningfully, "is someone on the inside. The mission was designed so that either George or Rex would be able to actually do some of the stealing, but it doesn't look too likely for you, Rex, especially if it would endanger your relationship with Georgia and her father. George, any chance of a breakthrough?"

George shrugged. "No idea. It's all secret and if I stick my nose in, it'll get cut off. It could happen tomorrow or it could happen in six weeks, but I can't tell."

Jules nodded. "Alright, well, make it your priority."

"He's done a great job ingratiating himself with the guys at the garage today," Lucy said. "If any of them are masterminding it, he'll be at the top of their list of new recruits."

"Then let's hope for sooner rather than later," Jules said confidently.

Unfortunately for George, the mission dragged after that. Lucy dropped out of school when she got offered a job at the garage, part-time to begin with but with opportunities to advance if she did a good job. While George was still sure that the group he hung out with at school were the ones who would be involved in criminal activities, they still wouldn't talk about it and the only thing George ever noticed was that Ollie sometimes fell asleep in lessons. It suggested that he was out late doing something, but he didn't know what, and Ollie just explained it as late night TV.

Rex couldn't find an opportunity to look at the garage again, although he found out that Georgia's father often moved stuff in and out of it. It was too suspicious to poke around, so they held out hope that their family would go on holiday or something and give the police the chance for a covert break-in.

George spent some of his weekends at the garage with Lucy, hanging out with Callum and John, but he usually cycled over so he could leave if things got boring. If it was any of the mechanics at the garage who were involved in choosing new recruits for their operations, they were obviously cautious, and George continued to make cups of tea and put away spanners for no reward.

He finally got his chance after four weeks of effort. It was getting into October and the weather was turning towards autumn, which means less time in the park. After one particularly miserable afternoon at school meant that they had to spend their lunch break indoors, Ollie asked George if he wanted to go to his house later.

"I've got a PlayStation and a big flatscreen so we can just play multiplayer or something," Ollie said. "Up to you."

"Sounds good," George replied, rapidly trying to complete the worksheet he'd been given for homework. "What time?"

"Just come over whenever. You know where I live."

That was true, but George had only been there twice to ask if Ollie was coming to the park, so he still managed to get partially lost and had to double back before he finally found the right street. Ollie's mum was a nice lady but she worked nights at the hospital and regularly left her children at home by themselves, so when she answered the door she seemed hassled.

"He's upstairs," she said, trying to pull a brush through her hopelessly tangled hair. "Second on the left."

When Ollie let George into his room, George broke into a huge smile. Ollie's room was _amazing_. It wasn't really that big and was about half the size of his room back on campus, but Ollie had everything. One wall was covered by a huge TV with a PlayStation and a giant stack of games underneath it. His bed was positioned so you could watch TV without getting up, and there was a mini fridge and a big gaming computer set up on his desk.

"This is awesome," George grinned. "Best room ever."

"Thanks," Ollie said, pulling over a beanbag for George to sit on. "I'll fire up the PlayStation, I've got FIFA and stuff if you want, plus there's Sprite or Coke in the fridge."

George helped himself to Sprite while Ollie set up the TV. "How did you afford all of this? No offence, but your mum doesn't exactly seem the type to give you five hundred quid for a PlayStation just whenever you want."

Ollie grinned. "She'd probably explode if she knew how much I'd spent on all this, but I can't tell you where I get the money."

"Come on, you can tell me," George said, plonking himself down on the beanbag and picking up a controller. "Who am I gonna tell?"

Ollie shook his head. "My life wouldn't be worth living if you let it slip that I'd told you."

They settled down for a match on FIFA. Ollie was a filthy Chelsea fan, but despite having his own PlayStation in his room, he wasn't amazing at the game and George was easily his match, even playing as QPR.

"Well you have to at least get me in on it," George said, deliberately conceding a goal so that Ollie wouldn't get annoyed. "I have to share a room with my brother and my dad refuses to let us have any money we haven't earned."

Ollie shrugged. "I can put in a good word, but no guarantees."

George was convinced that his friend had to be involved in the parts-stealing thing. There was no other explanation for how he managed to make so much money and yet was always free in the afternoons. It was good to get confirmation of what he'd suspected since the beginning.

"Alright, I suppose that's fair enough," George said, going in for the kill and scoring an easy goal from the edge of the penalty area. "Doesn't your mum ever wonder how you're getting the money?"

"Yeah, sometimes," Ollie said, concentrating on the game. "I don't think she minds too much because I give some to my sister and I help out sometimes with the electricity bill and stuff."

George decided not to press any more, stealing the ball from a defender and closing down on the goalkeeper. Ollie fouled him and he won a penalty, which he slotted home easily.

"Looks like mighty QPR are gonna win again," George grinned, gulping down Sprite. "You need more practice."

"Whatever," Ollie smiled, restarting play. "If you ever played Chelsea in real life they'd destroy you."

When George got home that evening, he told Jules about what he'd heard from Ollie.

"Sounds like you're on the right track," the mission controller replied, nodding. "I agree with you that Ollie must be involved. The police around here know quite a bit about the drug dealers and such, and none of them really seem to use kids more than usual. It could be shoplifting, though, especially if he's nicking stuff for his room."

"Possibly. I'll keep an eye on that," George replied, feeling a little deflated that his suspicions weren't iron-clad. "He said he'd put in a good word for me, whatever it is."

"Try to remind him but don't pester him," Jules said. "If he can get you involved, then the mission will really be rolling."

George nodded. He was desperate to make the breakthrough, which would look good on his record as an agent and would give him some more excitement, plus something to counter Rex's constant jibes about how well his side of the mission was going.


	12. 12: Job

**12: Job**

Ollie didn't need any reminders from George. At school the next day he told George he'd spoken to someone about it, but he didn't know whether they'd do anything. George didn't act too pleased, pretending that he thought it was a long shot, but inside he was hoping that something would come of it. The mission had been tailored so that he'd have the maximum chance of getting drawn into the organisation; his car skills, the freedom he had at home and the fact that Lucy was working at the garage. He knew they couldn't resist for long, and they didn't.

"Oi, kid," a voice said as George walked his bike home. A hand landed on his shoulder and he turned around to see an older teenager wearing a dark hoodie. For a moment he thought it would be a mugging, but the teen pulled him to one side, into an alleyway that led between a row of houses.

"I hear you're looking for a job," he said quickly, glancing around to make sure no-one was listening. "If you're interested, someone will meet you at Uxbridge tube station at ten o'clock tonight. Don't bring anything except money. You got a phone?"

"Yeah," George replied. "It's at home."

"Bring that as well."

The teen took another look around before striding off down the alley, leaving George standing with his bike. He could barely contain his excitement as he turned and headed for home, bursting to tell the others about it.

"Uxbridge? That's way out-"

"On the Metropolitan line, yeah," George finished Jules' sentence. "I used to live in Northolt, which isn't too far away."

Lucy shrugged. "Obviously they want to see if you're committed."

"I'll contact the police up that way. I didn't think that our lot in Croydon would reach that far," Jules said, frowning. "It must be someone else's turf. Anyway, Heathrow is in that direction so they usually keep a good handle on the local criminals."

"I can handle it," George said.

"Lucy, you can drive up that way and hang around five or ten minutes away, in case there's trouble," Jules said. "Leave later so it's not obvious, they may be watching the house, and take a roundabout route. If anyone can shake a tailing car, it's you."

Lucy blushed slightly. "Alright."

"I won't lecture you, George, you've had your training. Just make sure that if there's a problem, you ring Lucy. If you have to sacrifice the mission, I'd rather you did that than took dangerous risks. I know you want to perform well but if we have to pull the plug, I'll explain it so that you don't take any heat," Jules said firmly. "Now, do you think you can identify the guy who approached you on the street?"

"Yeah, probably," George said. "Just let me get changed out of my school uniform and stuff."

"Good man."

The late timing of the meeting meant that there was a chance the tube would have stopped running by the time George was looking to head back, so he worked out a plan with Lucy. He would get a night bus back towards central London and then phone her and she'd pick him up and bring him the rest of the way.

"That is, if I'm not in prison or something," George grinned.

"Try to avoid getting picked up by police," Lucy replied, but she smiled. "I don't know how I'd explain to the guys at the garage that you spent a night in the cells."

Uxbridge was on the opposite side of London and was two changes on the tube, including one at Wembley Park, so George took the opportunity to stare wistfully at the stadium, dreaming of the day that QPR were going to play there. It was dark by the time he arrived, but the station was practically deserted so he had no problem identifying the guys waiting for him. They were both dressed in smart-casual clothes, rather than the expected tracksuits and hoodies, but they were wearing baseball caps and the moment they saw him they approached.

"George Knight?" one of them said.

"Yeah, that's me."

"Alright, good. You can call me Joe and this is Dan," the taller one said.

As soon as they were clear of the station's CCTV cameras, Joe and Dan took off their baseball caps. George had hoped he would be able to identify them from the intelligence file, but he'd never seen them before.

"Okay, so if you've come this far, we can explain the score," Joe said as they climbed into a tiny hatchback in a nearby car park. "It's like this. We're running a job tonight; some rich guy's car, it's parked about two miles away. Dan and I are doing the hard part, we're going to steal it. You're going to keep lookout. You hear something, you scream, you cry, I don't care what, but you've never seen us before and you know nothing about it. We'll scarper, and most likely you'll get picked up, but you just say you know nothing and you live with your grandparents at ninety-two Yelland Avenue. What was that address?"

"Ninety-two Yelland Avenue," George repeated.

"Good. The couple there will take you in and then once the police have gone, send you on your way, no questions asked. If you breathe a single word about us to the police, you'll wish you were dead, clear?"

"Clear."

"If we nick the car successfully, we'll drive away and you're free to get home however you like. If you do a good job, your friends down in Croydon will be in contact for stuff a little closer to home."

"Sounds good," George said, faking enthusiasm. "I'm no grass."

"We'll see," Joe said. "Here, Dan, get the tools. I'll drive us over there but you've gotta be quick."

They drove onto a smart-looking suburban estate. Joe cruised around looking for the right car, which he spotted on a driveway about halfway down the street. He had the number plate and description written down on a piece of paper, so George guessed he was stealing it to order.

They parked just round the corner and Dan got out, closing the door quietly and strolling up the street with a variety of tools in his jacket.

"Alright kid, do your stuff. Stand on the corner at the other end and make sure nobody comes out of the house or comes round the corner."

George nodded and walked up the street confidently, passing Dan like he'd never seen him before. It was only just gone half past ten and some of the lights were still on in the local houses, but there was no traffic whatsoever. It looked as if the two teens had done their homework, which made George feel a little bit reassured. His last encounter with the police had put him off any further meetings.

Dan worked quickly. The car was a modern make, but Dan cancelled the security features and pulled open the door with minimal damage. Starting the engine was the tricky part; if someone in the house heard it and came outside, the police would be on red alert for the rest of the night. Luckily, the drive was built on a slope, so Dan just took off the handbrake and let gravity do the work, only switching on the engine once he was in the road. He drove off like he owned it, followed after thirty seconds by Joe in the other car. George strolled off and headed on an easy course back to the tube station, aware that someone might be watching him. Usually criminals weren't that thorough, but he didn't want to take any chances.

As he walked, it occurred to him that as far as initiation tests went, that one was very easy. It was all over in five nervous minutes, and now with the car long gone, the police wouldn't even be looking for him. There were even tube trains still running, so he caught one back to central London and took a detour, ending up on the Northern line before he rang Lucy and got her to pick him up.

"How'd it go?" Lucy asked as he jumped into the car. "I assume it went well, considering you're not in the back of a police van."

"Yup, no problem at all. Textbook," George said, nonetheless glad that it was over.

"Did you recognise anyone?"

"Nope. Odd thing was, they said something about '_your friends down in Croydon_', so it sounds like they're linked but not the same group," George replied. "I think I was being tested somewhere well out of harm's way, so if I did crack, they could keep me at arm's length."

"Makes a lot of sense. Anyway, when we get back you can give Jules their descriptions and he'll run it through the police database. Unfortunately we probably can't save the car they stole, since it would jeopardise this mission," Lucy said, "but good job nonetheless. If they report back that you did a good job, you're certain to start getting stuff that'll help the mission."

George nodded. "You know what's odd?"

"Hmm?"

"Their tactics were that if they were rumbled, I'd take the heat while they got away, which is pretty much exactly the same as the gang we're trying to crack. There must be links if criminals on the other side of London are using the same tactics."

"You're right, but it's hardly a trade secret," Lucy replied. "CHERUB knows all about how useful children are, so it makes sense that criminals do."

"But the execution was perfect. If they'd got it wrong and the police had been alerted, they'd both have been long gone before anyone knew it was them and all the police would have had was a crying kid who gave nothing away."

"Lucky that CHERUB exists to stop them, then," Lucy smiled. "It may seem clever and it might seem like nobody gets hurt, but I'd bet there are a couple of kids with criminal records and not many prospects for their future because a criminal took advantage and made a helpless kid take a fall for them."

"True," George said, stifling a yawn. "At least CHERUB will pull you out of the mess if something goes wrong."

"Precisely. Anyway, there's some coffee in the cupholder if you want it. Jules will want a full debriefing before you go to bed so you want to be awake."

George grabbed the jumbo cup and tested to see if it was too hot before gulping down a few mouthfuls. Lucy liked her coffee sickeningly sweet and it tasted awful.

"This is disgusting," George complained. "Can't we stop for something?"

"Maybe when we're nearer home," Lucy said. "It's better to get back before you start forgetting details."

While George wasn't looking forward to the extended debriefing, he was secretly quite pleased that he'd be the centre of attention for a change. They were constantly told that missions were a competition, but that didn't take into account having a best friend who would take any opportunity to get one over on you, plus the fact that everyone you knew was competing to see who would be first to a navy shirt. It had been annoying him that Rex seemed to be ahead with all of his discoveries at Georgia's house, but now the tables had turned and George was ready to start rubbing it in.


	13. 13: Secrets

**13: Secrets**

Lucy warned George about not being too mean to Rex, so George kept it toned down. She'd reminded him that after all of Rex's extra dojo training and the fact that he'd been off missions for months, he would be quite capable of kicking George's butt given half a chance. George decided to be nice instead and just enjoy his victory privately.

After the secretive treatment he'd had, George was expecting another secret meeting to tell him what was next, but actually it was left to Ollie, who told him as they were going home after school.

"It's pretty simple. Tomorrow night you just have to go to this guy's house and he'll give you detailed instructions. Don't worry about it; I've done this hundreds of times and nobody has ever hassled me," Ollie said.

"Where's the house?"

"I'll write it down for you and give it to you tomorrow, my memory is terrible for this kind of thing."

George grinned. "Awesome. How much am I getting paid?"

"They never tell you until afterwards. I usually get about fifty quid, but I once got over two hundred. If you muck it up, you get nothing," Ollie explained. "If you do one a week, it quickly adds up. By Christmas, you'll have enough for a PS3."

"Sweet," George replied, thinking of all the cool stuff he could buy. "And it's not dangerous?"

"Nah. I dunno what they told you, but I usually just have to keep a look out for an older guy while he does something to a car, I dunno what. A whole group of us do it; Wasim and those lot, plus some others who are younger. Someone occasionally gets picked up by the police but you usually get released straight away."

"What if you don't?"

"They'll give you a caution, but then you get a thousand quid through your letterbox," Ollie grinned. "It's almost worth it."

George nodded. "Alright, sounds good. Just let me know tomorrow."

"The guy you go and see will probably try and scare you, but it's just so you keep your mouth shut. If you go around grassing, they'll come round and beat you up or worse."

"I'm not a grass, it's fine. Anyway, I can't wait to make some serious money," George said. "I'll finally have a room as awesome as yours."

The address was a short bike ride away from home, so George set off five minutes before he was due there. Everything took place in the dead of night, so George had spent the time after school sleeping so he wouldn't be too tired. Then he'd endured Jules and Lucy repeating practically everything he'd heard in basic training, but he didn't need to hear it. After one hundred days of Kazakov, be could handle a couple of thugs.

His instructions said he should knock four times, which he did, and the door opened a few seconds later. For the first time, he saw someone he recognised; the man who had opened the door was on the police's database. George couldn't remember his name or anything, but he had an odd scar on the side of his mouth which was distinctive. George made a mental note to make sure he told Jules about it.

"George? My name's Lee. Come in," he said, acting friendly.

George followed him in, wiping his feet on the mat and then heading through to a living room which didn't have much except a coffee table, battered sofa and a TV.

"Alright George, take a seat," Lee said, running his hand over his stubbly chin and handing over a sheet of paper. "Read this and remember all of it."

The paper was basically like an amateur version of the mission briefings that CHERUB produced. It gave details of a car that he had to go and identify, which would be parked about five miles away. There were detailed instructions of two parts he had to take out from the engine and replace with identical parts that another kid was going to bring.

"If your look-out doesn't turn up, you won't have the parts so don't bother carrying on," Lee said, placing a large, tattooed hand on George's shoulder once he was finished reading. George realised suddenly that there was a serrated knife in his grip and it was inches from his throat.

"If the police turn up, drop everything and run. If you have time, smash up the car, make it look like vandalism. If you're caught, just act dumb and say nothing. You're young enough that they'll either take you home or they'll caution you, but neither really matters. If you squeal, I will get a few friends and visit your house, and you can expect a lot of pain."

"Loud and clear," George said, wishing Lee would move the knife slightly further away. A cough or a sneeze now would result in a one-way trip to hospital.

"When you've got the parts, take 'em to the garage. Someone will be expecting you."

George nodded very slowly.

"Alright, off you go. Remember, say nothing. You know nothing."

It was an easy enough cycle through the quiet streets, but George switched off the lights on his bike when he got close to the street that the car was expected to be parked on. There were street lights so it wasn't completely dark, but the orange glow wasn't enough to really see by so George felt safe stashing his bike in a hedge.

He strolled up the street and noted that the car was parked on the street where it was supposed to be. There was no sign of the other kid yet, so he kept on walking and waited round the corner for five minutes, trying not to look conspicuous.

"George?" a voice said from behind him, making him jump. He turned around and recognised a kid from school. They'd played football together a few times but not enough to really know names.

"Yeah," George replied. "You got the bits?"

The kid handed them over. "Make it quick, I need to get back as soon as possible."

"I'll do my best."

George could feel his heart pounding as he walked to the car. He'd been in tougher spots on training and it wasn't all that crucial to the mission, but he didn't fancy getting caught nonetheless. The car was an unfamiliar one, but all engines are fundamentally similar, and once George had followed the instructions to get the bonnet open, it didn't take him long to work loose the components he was supposed to be stealing. They weren't very big so he pushed them deep into his trouser pockets before screwing the spare parts into place. There were a few nervous moments when he dropped a screw and couldn't find it in the half-light, but he was finished in less than fifteen minutes. He nodded to the lookout and then headed purposefully for his bike, leaving the car looking exactly as he'd found it. He used his phone to plan a route to the garage and then cycled off, his heart still in his mouth. He was expecting a police car to be waiting around every corner, but as he got closer to the garage he could feel his confidence returning, and once again he had the impression that whoever was running the show knew exactly what they were doing. No wonder the police were having difficulty cracking it.

"George, excellent," Damien said as George rolled his bike up to the back of the garage. "Everything go smoothly?"

"Yup. Here you go," George said, pulling the components out of his pockets.

"Excellent. Here's your money," Damien added, examining the parts as he handed George an unmarked envelope. George peered inside and spotted a couple of twenty pound notes.

"As always, this didn't happen. Don't tell your friends at school, not your brother, not even your sister. We'll know if you've been talking," Damien said, giving him a friendly smile. "Anyway, you'd best get back."

"Okay. When will I get the next job?" George asked, hoping it would be soon.

Damien shrugged. "Whenever. You'll hear from someone, don't worry."

George nodded and cycled away, noticing that the read area of the garage was lit up. He was still wondering what they got up to in the dead of night, and he could faintly hear the sound of car engines running. On a whim, he pulled up on the next street and hid his bike behind a disused shop, before climbing a metal fence and skirting round the back of the garage. There a storage unit nearby and, with the floodlights on, if he lay on the roof he'd never be noticed. It wasn't very high and made an easy climb, although it was pitch black and he had no idea whether the squelches under his feet were wet clumps of moss or something more sinister.

Once he'd reached the far side, he got a good view of the back of the garage. The lights in the main area of the garage were all switched off, but the back was lit up and there were two cars parked. George was still working on his car recognition, but one of them was clearly someone's pride and joy; it had a two-tone blue paint design with stickers all over the doors, and the wheel rims were painted gold and red. Next to it was a more plain looking car, but they both had beefy engines and there was a haze of smoke coming from their exhausts.

George was too far away to really distinguish faces, but it seemed that the important stuff was going on in the back of the rusted van. People kept going in and out while the others just joked and sat around admiring the two cars. George took a couple of pictures on his phone with the flash switched off, but the bright floodlights meant that there wasn't much to see.

Disappointed, George headed back the way he'd come. He could stake the place out all night, but he wasn't sure if he was just going to see a bunch of mechanics chatting or whether there was going to be something major, so it wasn't worth it. Lucy said that it tended to be livelier at the weekends, but that also meant that there was less chance of illegal stuff happening.

Lucy and Rex were in bed, but Jules had stayed up awaiting George's return. He put his bike away and stepped into the kitchen, feeling hungry.

"There's bread in the toaster," Jules said, sitting down at the kitchen table. "Now, I want a full report. This is the first time we've had anyone get solid intel on exactly how the crimes are committed and it's _crucial_ to the investigation."

"Alright, alright, keep your wig on," George said, settling into a chair after grabbing the carton of orange juice. "I've got quite a few names and faces, plus confirmation that the garage Lucy works at is involved with the dodgy parts, but nothing about ringleaders."

"Well, I wasn't expecting the jackpot first time out of the gate. Just go through it from start to finish, and I'll get everything written down," Jules replied.

George had school in the morning and he knew that, despite sleeping in the afternoon, he'd be knackered the next day, plus he hadn't even made a dent on his homework. He couldn't even just have the day off school in case someone needed to contact him for another job. As he began recounting all of the information for Jules between major yawns, he realised more than ever that being a spy definitely had its downsides.


	14. 14: Meeting

**14: Meeting**

The job that George had done was obviously routine for the gang, but it was a huge breakthrough for the mission. The man called Lee who had threatened George, plus Damien and even the boy who'd kept lookout, were now under investigation. Lucy had been working at the garage when the car that George had stolen the part from was brought in, and she'd managed to make a note of the serial numbers on the broken parts, which Jules was sure would help implicate Georgia's dad. With solid information on how the thefts were taking place, the local police were already working to see if they could second-guess where the next theft would be.

George did his second job early the next week. He'd received the instructions and had located the car and his lookout without any trouble, but for some reason the owners of the car were having a heated argument and hadn't drawn the curtains, so the two of them were sitting behind a low garden wall, waiting for things to calm down.

"So, been doing this long?" George asked, trying to make conversation with his young companion.

"About a year," the boy replied. "My big brother does it too, and he looks after my money."

"How much do you lookouts get paid?"

"Five pounds every time," he said proudly. "I can buy as many sweets as I like, every week."

"Wow," George smiled, wondering if he'd been so innocent when he was eight. "Don't eat too many though."

"I also buy comics," the boy added, to make sure George understood.

"Ever been caught?" George asked this with a grin, in case the boy got scared. Thankfully, he seemed to be made of tougher stuff than that.

"Nope," he replied. "My friend Adam was, the police had him all night but they sent him home."

"Was his mum angry?"

"Yeah, so he hasn't done any of this since."

The conversation petered out, so George let the boy have his phone so he could play on some games, on the condition that he kept the sound off and gave it back if it rang.

The couple finally stopped shouting at each other and went to bed after a further thirty minutes, by which time George's legs were numb from sitting. It took him a few minutes to get the feeling back, then he reclaimed his phone and sent his companion off to keep lookout while he worked on the car. It was even easier than the last time; he was just removing part of the exhaust system. The pipes and bolts were clumsy to carry around once he'd removed them, but once they were safely strapped to his bike he felt better.

This time it was a different mechanic who handed George his envelope full of cash, swapping it for the parts. George counted it quickly and discovered that it was ninety quid, which put a huge smile on his face.

"Don't spend it all at once, kid," the mechanic warned. "You don't want people to start asking questions."

With all of the leads that were appearing, Jules had his work cut out following each one and writing it all up into his reports. They couldn't have the local police round without attracting suspicion, so Jules was skipping work and borrowing an office in the New Scotland Yard headquarters of the Metropolitan Police. One Saturday, Jules decided that they needed to have a meeting to discuss how everything was going, which annoyed George because he'd been invited to a birthday party.

"Sorry George, but it's the only time that Lucy can be here outside of school time," Jules explained as they sat around the table with a jug of coffee in the middle.

"It's alright," George shrugged. "I'll get over it."

"So," Jules said, addressing the three Cherubs sat in front of him. "We've been working this mission for six weeks and it's going rather well, I think. Lucy, what's the latest from you?"

Lucy cleared her throat and had a few mouthfuls of sugary coffee. "Well, the job at the garage is going well. I think the only reason they haven't drawn me into the inner circle that deals with the illegal stuff is just because we're relatively new to the area, but with the dark nights to come, I expect they may want extra hands and I've made it clear I'm willing to help."

"Is there anything you can do to speed the process? A word in the right ear?"

Lucy shook her head. "I'm still reluctant to force it. I'd guess that it'll be another two, maybe three weeks."

"Having someone on the inside of that would be the final piece of the puzzle," Jules said, tapping his fingers on the table. "I don't want to wait as long as three weeks, but if that's what has to happen, I'll trust your judgement.

"Now, George, what about you?"

George gave him a non-committal look. "I expect they'll give me a few more jobs over the coming weeks, maybe more over half term since more people will be free."

Jules nodded. "I've spoken to campus and suggested that you might be able to go back for a few days if you like. We can make an excuse to cover for your absence, maybe something about visiting your birth parents."

"I'd rather get in on the jobs," George replied, "but they never tell you until the day before. If I gave them an excuse, I don't think they wouldn't have a problem."

"Any prospects of extra information coming your way?"

"Probably not. They run a tight operation, so they're understandably not telling eleven-year-olds their secrets," George explained. "I might get lucky and see a few more faces, maybe get some names. I've tried asking the younger kids I work with, but they don't say much I don't already know. The most important thing will be seeing how it links up with the staff at the garage."

Jules smiled. "That's true. You're doing a good job, at least, so just keep doing what you're doing and hopefully something will come up."

"If I keep doing it long enough, I'm bound to get caught by the police at some point, which might open up some new leads, but I'm not confident," George added.

"Right, well. We'll see how it goes, but at the moment, I'm happy with that just ticking over."

Jules turned to Rex. "Finally, Rex, what's happening with Georgia?"

Lucy suddenly let out a giggle, and everyone stared at her.

"Sorry," she said, shaking her head and blushing. "There's just something funny about the whole George/Georgia thing. You know, because they have similar names."

George rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, Rex, you were saying?"

"I still go round her house every so often, but it's impossible for me to do more than I've done so far. Georgia stays out of her dad's business and so I don't know when he's having meetings or anything, and getting back into their garage with enough time to hunt around isn't gonna happen while Georgia is supposed to be with me."

Jules thought for a moment. "Could you stall her in some way? Pretend you're going to the shops, then double back and sneak in?"

"The garage is attached to her house. The slightest noise and I'd be rumbled."

"What about sending her out?"

"Nah, she wouldn't buy it. It's either gonna take some luck, or a break-in."

Jules shook his head firmly. "No break-in. If he gets wind that someone's poking around in his garage, or even in his house, it'll cause all kinds of problems."

Rex shrugged. "Then I'm out of ideas."

Jules fixed him with a look. "Rex, your end of the mission is vital. You've been to the house enough times, there must be something useful you can come up with. Get into his office or something."

"I suppose…"

"I get the impression that you'd rather spend the afternoon with your little girlfriend than actually gathering intelligence," Jules said coolly. "If that's the case, rest assured that I'll be putting that little detail on your permanent file."

Rex jumped up, slamming his palms on the table. "I am trying to find stuff!" he said angrily. George knew that Rex had a temper and couldn't take criticism, so he hoped that Jules knew how to handle it.

"Prove it. I need something concrete from you," Jules said. "I don't want the spoiled-kid act and I don't want a temper tantrum."

Rex shook his head and tutted. "You're supposed to trust the agents."

Jules let out a bitter laugh. "I can trust Lucy, because she's an experienced agent with a black shirt to her name. I can't trust you because you're a newly-qualified agent who seems to have spent most of his career to date getting into trouble and very little of it trying to earn trust."

"If you can't trust me, why do I even bother?" Rex shouted, storming out of the room. George was expecting him to go out, but he just stomped up the stairs.

George looked at Jules. "He has a temper, you probably shouldn't have wound him up."

Jules shrugged. "If he's not working hard, he needs a kick up the backside."

"I suppose, but he'll probably just sulk for a week now."

"Well, maybe I handled it wrong. I wasn't expecting him to explode like that," Jules admitted. "Most Cherubs can take criticism."

"George, go and see if you can calm him down," Lucy suggested. "You know him best."

"It's no good," George replied. "He'll just get angry at me."

"Try anyway," Lucy said diplomatically.

Rex had buried himself under his duvet when George stepped into the room, feeling relieved that there wasn't more carnage.

"Rex, come on, Jules says he's sorry," George said, standing in the doorway.

"Easy for you to say, you're the golden wonder boy of the mission," Rex said, throwing the duvet to one side and sitting up. His eyes were red from crying and George felt bad for him.

"Your side of the mission is just as important. You'll get a breakthrough and then you'll be back on track," George reassured him.

Rex just grinned at him, but still looked miserable. "Well, at least I have a girlfriend out of all of this. All you've got are your PlayStation mates."

George was only ten, but he'd heard older agents talking about boyfriends and girlfriends and he'd seen enough TV shows to know about how it worked. While he still thought that girls were insanely annoying, with the occasional exception, he still felt a little jealous that Rex was acting like an adult and he felt like a little kid.

"Whatever," George said, bunching a fist without realising. "You probably haven't even kissed her or anything."

"That's what you think," Rex said smugly. "I suppose you're too young to understand."

George liked Rex when he was in a good mood, but when he was in a temper he could be a downright nasty guy. George just ignored him and turned to leave.

"Oh, George?"

George paused.

"If you tell Jules about this, I'll kick your arse from here to campus and back."

Normally George would have shrugged off the threat, but there was a tone that made him think that, given the chance, Rex would actually do it.

"Whatever, Rex. Do what you want."

George planned to give Rex a wide berth for the rest of the weekend. He was annoyed that Jules had upset Rex, annoyed that Rex was taking it out on him, and annoyed that Rex was putting his own stupid personal life ahead of the mission. He slumped down in front of the TV, not wanting to talk to Jules or Lucy until he felt better. Rex was an idiot.


	15. 15: Cheat

**15: Cheat**

In the end, he didn't tell Jules about what Rex had said. He knew that Rex would probably be apologising in a week, so he didn't want to make anything worse. For him, at least, the mission continued as normal. Everyone at school was looking forward to half term, but George occupied himself with the jobs and saving up his money. CHERUB policy was that any money agents got on missions from criminal acts was supposed to be given to charity after the mission, but George didn't feel like sticking precisely to that rule. The notes were tucked down the side of his mattress and he didn't let Jules know about the true extent of what he had saved, just in case.

The Friday that half term began was a boring day at school. George had mostly behaved himself when at school, except from the occasional missed homework deadline and a couple of detentions for mucking around in lessons. He knew that was supposed to put the mission first and could think of school later, which was why, when Ollie decided he couldn't be bothered with the afternoon's music concert and prize-giving, George found himself following his friend out of the school gates with a feeling of excitement.

"Where do you wanna go?" George asked, unlocking his bike.

"Anywhere. By half three everywhere will be rammed full of kids," Ollie said. "We could go and splash some cash."

George shook his head. "Nah, I'm still trying to save," he replied.

"Ah well. Could go back to mine, my sister'll be out and we'll have the run of the place, so long as you don't wake up my mum."

George considered it for a moment. The fact that they were out of school and everyone else was still there was giving him an idea.

"Actually, I'm gonna go home for a bit. I'll see you in the park later?"

"What? I thought we were gonna take advantage of the quiet?"

"I wanna ditch the uniform, sorry."

At home, George swapped into a dark-coloured jacket and t-shirt. Every Cherub has a decent baseball cap and George was no exception, so he pulled it on and grabbed his lock gun before leaving.

He'd never been to Georgia's house before, but he knew the way from what Rex had told him. Since Georgia would be in school and her dad would be at work, he was planning to break into the garage quickly, photograph everything he could find and be out again before three o'clock, leaving everything as he found it so that nobody would suspect. Normally he would have asked Rex if he was up for helping, but he was still angry at Rex. If he could do what Rex hadn't been able to do, it'd make Rex look like a complete idiot and serve him right.

The house looked empty as he cycled down the street, although he knew that Georgia's mum would be inside. Rex said she did nothing but watch TV soaps all day, so he took a chance. The garage was at the end of the drive, so he cycled straight up to it and leant his bike against the wall. His baseball cap shielded his face in case any passers-by happened to see him, and he used his lock gun to quickly unlock the garage. It only had an ancient lock on it and George reckoned he could probably have opened it with a screwdriver.

Like Rex had said, the garage was stacked high with cardboard boxes. George shut the garage door behind him and switched on the torch on his phone. There was way too much to go through all of it, but he reckoned that anything freshly stolen or that got used often would be on top, whereas older stuff like furniture or a broken lawnmower would be at the bottom. He got to work as soon as he'd pulled his sleeves over his hands to avoid prints.

Every box was stuffed full of car components, which was not too unlikely for a scrap merchant, but George photographed all of the serial codes just in case. He found a few promising things; a box full of old car keys, some documents that looked forged and a whole cache of fake tax discs, but mostly it was just more and more parts. It was impossible to tell if they were stolen just by looking, but George knew enough to notice that most of the parts were damaged or broken, exactly like the ones he fitted to cars in the middle of the night. He didn't let himself get too hopeful, but after an hour's search, he let himself back out of the garage and cycled away, his phone's memory stuffed with images.

The plan was to back up all of the images to his laptop and then send them to Jules, but he was stopped just as he cycled round the corner onto his street by one of the younger mechanics who he vaguely recognised from the garage.

"George? Weren't you at school?" he asked.

"Er, I bunked off," George said sheepishly. "Didn't fancy the end of term stuff."

"Doesn't matter. Anyway, you've got a job, but we reckon the family are gonna be off on a skiing trip or something by five o'clock today, so you've gotta go now and work fast. Here's the info," he said, pressing a folded piece of paper into George's hand. "Sorry it's so short notice, but you're our best guy and if anyone can do it, it's you."

"Roger," George said, pleased by the compliment. He took a few seconds to scan the paper while the mechanic jogged back to his car. It wasn't a very long distance to go, but carrying out the job in broad daylight needed nerves of tungsten; the moment anyone saw a kid messing around with a car, they'd immediately think he was vandalising it and the police would be all over him in two minutes.

There wasn't enough time to hang around and devise a plan, so George headed straight to the address, working his way through heavy after-school traffic. The whole plan seemed stupid and it was nothing like the meticulously-planned operations that he'd been on in the past. The only thing that made him feel a little better was that his lookout was Ollie, who seemed equally as bewildered.

"I've no idea why they're making us do it," Ollie said, handing George a plastic bag with two metal parts in it. "Just do it quickly."

George wanted to come up with a clever plan to pull it off, like asking Ollie to go up to the door and distract the occupants, or maybe dressing up as a mechanic, but there was no time. He rolled straight under the car and got to work with a spanner, loosening the nuts and trying to swap the parts before any passers-by noticed what was going on.

He'd managed to remove the original parts before his worst fears were realised.

"Excuse me young man, what are you doing under there?" an elderly voice asked. George froze for a second, but then hid the spanner in his sleeve.

"Playing hide and seek," he replied, hoping it sounded convincing.

"Well, it's very dirty down there, and that's not your car, is it?"

"Erm, no."

"I'm sure the owners would prefer it if you didn't play under their car, it's very dangerous."

The old dear was about to get down and help him up, George knew it, so he got back to work, fixing on the new parts.

"I think I'm stuck… my arm's caught on something," he said.

"I'll go and get help, my knees aren't what they were," the lady said.

"No, I think I'll be out in a second," George said, panicking. "I don't want to get in trouble."

He fumbled one of the bolts and the part almost dropped off, but he managed to get it back on and tighten the nut. The lady wandered off regardless and he knew that he was supposed to run, but he was so close to being finished.

"Here, what's going on?" a man's voice said. It was on the kerb side of the car, so as soon as George was finished he pocketed the parts and his spanner and rolled out of the opposite side, setting off at a sprint.

The man shouted something and chased after him, but George got to his bike first and cycled off at a speed he couldn't match. George knew that if they called the police, they would be looking for a kid on a bike, so he prioritised getting back to the garage as quickly as possible. Once he'd got rid of the parts, he could go home at his leisure.

Thankfully, being a kid in the streets of Croydon after the schools have let out means it's easy to blend in. George just followed the flow until he reached the garage, where he pulled in and was pleased to see that Ollie waiting for him.

"Good job," a man who George didn't recognise said when he pulled up. "Parts."

George handed them over in return for an envelope bulging with cash. He didn't need to count it to realise it was more than he'd ever had before.

"We need reliable kids like you," the man said, giving him a thumbs-up before heading back inside the garage.

George stopped to catch his breath, and Ollie laughed.

"Scary, huh?" he asked. "When that old lady came over, I thought you were a goner."

"Managed to get away," George said. "Why didn't you shout or something?"

"Took me by surprise. She was almost past you before she noticed. Anyway, what did you think of Georgia's dad?"

"Huh?"

"The guy you gave the parts to. He's Georgia's dad, I think he owns a scrapyard or something."

George didn't let any emotion show on his face, but he knew it was a big breakthrough. He could link Georgia's dad to the parts-stealing enterprise for certain, although he didn't have any hard evidence yet.

"Anyway, I know you're saving up, but fancy blowing some of that cash at McDonalds? I think I need something after my near heart attack earlier."

"One sec, let me just go and see if my sister's in," George said. His phone still had all of the photos on, and since there was a slight chance of the police picking him up, he wanted his phone safe with her.

He strolled round the back of the garage, getting friendly waves from some of the mechanics he knew. John and Callum were, as usual, working together on a broken-down looking motorbike.

"You seen my sister?" George asked.

"In the van," Callum grinned. "I wouldn't disturb her, though, if I were you."

"Why not? She busy with something?"

"Some_one_," John laughed. "Damien's been getting plenty of kissing action lately."

An evil smile appeared on George's face. He pulled out his phone and approached the van, hoping for a good shot he could blackmail her with. The rear doors were open and the van was empty, but when he crept round to the cab, he spotted the back of Damien's head, with what looked like Lucy's hand on his neck. He set the phone to immediately email the photos to himself, so that even if she deleted them he'd still have a copy.

Once he was in front of the van, he sprang up and got two or three quick pictures of the two of them kissing before they sprang apart. The phone bleeped to say that the email was sent before Lucy managed to leap out of the van and chase after him, screaming.

"Give that here you little bastard," she spat, grabbing the back of his jacket and throwing him to the ground.

"Alright, alright," George said. He'd smacked his elbow on the tarmac and it really hurt, so he handed over the phone without a fight. "Listen, make sure you give the phone to Jules. I'll explain later."

Lucy's anger seemed to subside a little as she flicked through the photos on the phone and realised what they were. George thought he was off the hook as he jumped up, but she grabbed his arm and gave him two brutal punches.

"You breathe a word of this to anyone and I'll break every bone in your body," she growled.

"Okay," George said meekly. His arm was aching and he was close to tears, but he'd endured worse. Once Lucy let go and ran off to collect his bike, happy in the knowledge that he'd got the photos saved.


	16. 16: Campus

16: Campus

George knew that Michael had turned sixteen a few weeks earlier. Cherubs liked to make a point of sending cards to each other, but since Michael was still overseas he'd sent the card to campus and added a short bit onto an email that Lucy was sending. Sixteen seemed impossibly old to George, who was still a few months away from his eleventh birthday, but he knew it was something of a milestone and that Michael would probably want to celebrate when he got back to campus. The problem was, George didn't know if he should ruin it by telling Michael about what Lucy had been doing. He ignored her threat; he knew she'd never beat up a younger agent and anyway, Michael was built like a brick wall and could easily protect him. He'd ignored her flirting while she was trying to get a job, but now there was no reason for her to keep getting closer to Damien or anyone else, so he felt like she was just cheating on Michael. He couldn't decide whether or not to tell him.

Jules drove them back to campus, leaving Lucy behind. She'd made their excuses for them, telling everyone that they were spending a few days visiting their birth parents. Jules was going to stay overnight and do some paperwork before having a meeting on campus in the morning and then driving back. Rex sat in the back of the car, still in a sulk, so George sat in the front and struggled with his moral dilemma.

Also bothering him was the fact that Rex said he had a girlfriend and he'd kissed her. Seeing Lucy with Damien had just added to the fact that he felt like everyone thought he was a little kid. He wanted to seem grown-up and cool, but the only girls he really knew were the ones on campus. Most of them were either mean or knew enough karate to make his life miserable, so his imminent chances of getting a girlfriend seemed to be zero. He was fed up of enduring Rex's taunts and wished he could do something that would get him back.

Campus hadn't really changed since they'd left, although the trees had lost most of their leaves and it was much wetter. He and Rex were basically back on speaking terms, so they shared the elevator back up to the seventh floor, but Rex shut himself in his room, claiming he needed to unpack. George wasn't going to bother unpacking, since he was only back for a short time, so he just dumped his bag in the middle of his empty-looking room and went to see if anyone else was in.

"Hi George!" Beatrice grinned, pulling him into a hug. "I didn't know you were back."

"Just got in," he said, smiling. "Anyone else around? I tried Letty's and Jemima's doors, but they aren't in."

"Jemima's in the dojo, I think, and Letty's still on her mission, although she's supposed to get back soon," Beatrice said. "I actually thought it was her when you knocked."

"Sorry to disappoint," George grinned. "Will she be back by dinner? I need to catch up on the gossip."

"I would've thought so," Beatrice replied. "How's your mission going?"

"Pretty good," George shrugged. "Rex is in a mood with me, but what's new?"

"I think Letty's mission is going well too. We email occasionally, but you can tell she's busy," Beatrice said. "Although, you probably email her too."

George laughed nervously. "Yeah, I'm terrible at remembering to reply to emails. She's sent me a few, but I keep forgetting."

"You're such an idiot," Beatrice said. "Anyway, I've got the afternoon off, so if you wanna wait until Letty and Jemima are back, we can go and do something. Invite Rex if you want, if he's not still angry."

"Awesome. I'll just go and see if Ed and Harry and those lot are around, I haven't seen Ed or Ralph since they went into basic."

"They both passed," Beatrice informed him, "but Ed's already off on a mission. Ralph's around, his room's at the other end of the corridor."

"Thanks," George said, leaving her to it. He knocked on Rex's door, figuring that he'd better at least try and be friendly. Sometimes he wondered why he bothered, but Rex was his best friend and he'd learnt from hard experience that it was easier to get on with him if you were willing to put up with his stupidity sometimes.

Letty returned from her mission later in the day, but she had to go to a meeting so the first time George saw her was when she appeared in the cafeteria. He'd finished eating but he went and got another glass of juice so that he'd have a reason to hang around.

Once Letty, Jemima and Beatrice had finished squealing and hugging each other, George gave Letty a friendly smile.

"How's the mission going?" he asked, noticing that Letty had got a tan and that she'd cut her hair a little shorter.

Letty shrugged. "Pretty good. Nothing like living in California with all that sun," she teased. "I hear you're living in a hole in the ground somewhere."

"It's not quite that bad," George replied, "I mostly just have to endure Rex."

"Where is he? I was gonna say hello," Letty said, looking around. "Did he finish eating already?"

"He's in his room, I think. He got upset last week and he's still sulking."

"Rex is such a baby," Jemima tutted.

Letty turned to face her friend. "Hey, leave him alone for five minutes, huh? I'm only back for three days and I don't want to put up with your fighting."

Jemima shrugged. "Maybe if he was less of an idiot, it wouldn't happen."

George cracked a grin. "You know, I've missed all this while I've been away. All of my new friends are totally normal."

Letty dug her elbow into his ribs painfully. "You'd better start being nice too, or I won't be giving out presents."

"Presents?" Jemima and Beatrice chimed at the same time, looking at each other and collapsing into giggles.

"It's not very much," Letty said, "but I got a few things. Mostly those sweets you just can't get over here."

Still massaging his ribs, George put an arm around Letty's shoulder. "You know we'd _never_ do anything to endanger our chances of getting presents, right?"

Letty shoved his arm away. "If you don't let me eat in peace, I'll be keeping them all for myself."

George had been looking forward to a holiday while he was back on campus, but Jules had put in a request that he spend a day getting extra tuition about cars. Unfortunately, this required a nine o'clock start, so he dragged himself out of bed and made his way down to the technical department. It seemed odd to be wearing CHERUB uniform after so many weeks of school uniform, but George was happy that it didn't come with a tie.

"Ah, George," Terry Campbell said as he arrived. "Come in, you can have a look at this."

George followed him through the door and was led over to one of the electric golf carts that trundled around the paths on campus. It was almost totally disassembled and George had a sinking feeling that he was going to have to put it back together.

"Came in early to get working on this," Terry said, scratching his white beard. "It's got some fault but I can't work out where."

George looked blankly at it. "I have no idea," he said truthfully.

"Hmm. Well, you can give me a hand to put it back together," Terry suggested. "You might spot something I won't."

There had been rumours about a trip to the swimming pool and possibly a film in the evening, so George didn't relish the idea of spending his day poking around in a shed, but he was supposed to be enthusiastic so he went to get a toolbox while Terry got to work.

Terry was a good teacher and seemed happy that George at least showed an interest in machines, which meant that by the afternoon, George was lying underneath a Golf GTI removing the exhaust so that Terry could fit a more efficient version. He enjoyed driving more than he enjoyed working on cars, but it was fun nonetheless and he loved the feeling of accomplishment when he was finished. Plus, Terry was happy to answer questions and tell him about cars and missions with interesting car chases.

"Mug of tea for you, George," Terry said, placing the mug on the floor of the workshop where George could see it. George passed the final few nuts out from underneath the car and then wheeled himself out, sitting up.

"Didn't know if you liked tea, so if you don't, doesn't matter," Terry said, passing him a rag so he could wipe his hands.

"Haven't really tried it before," George replied. He'd seen the mechanics at the garage in Croydon drinking it all the time and he was curious to see if he'd like it.

Terry smiled. "Well, you'd better get used to it, you'll be drinking plenty more I expect."

George blew on the hot drink before carefully sipping at it. It didn't taste particularly nice, and he still would have preferred a can of Coke or something, but it made him feel grown-up so he carried on drinking it.

"Anyway, I'll get that exhaust fitted tomorrow," Terry said, looking at his watch. "It's a shame Lucy's still away on that mission, I'd have liked to give it to her for a test drive."

"I could test drive it?" George volunteered enthusiastically.

"You need a professional," Terry replied with a laugh. "Sorry."

George shrugged. "Worth a try."

"If you're dead keen on driving something, you can come back tomorrow and I'll see if I can find something," Terry suggested. "There are always a couple of pool cars that could do with a workout and if it keeps you interested, I'm all for it."

George was only on campus for three full days, but he guessed that driving around in a car would be more fun than getting bored in Rex's room. "Yeah, I could do that."

Terry always went home to his family at five o'clock, which left George the evening to do what he liked. He caught up with his friends over dinner and joined everyone when they went to watch a film on a projector. Even Rex went, and he seemed to be over his bad mood, although that didn't stop him from giving George a dead leg when George threw popcorn at him.

After the film Jemima and Beatrice went to go and do their homework, so Rex, Harry and Ralph suggested a PlayStation tournament.

"Sounds good," George replied. "I'll catch you up, though."

"We'll be in Ralph's room," Rex said, hurrying off after the other two.

George was looking forward to the PlayStation tournament, but he felt bad leaving Letty by herself. "Want to go back to my room or something? I feel like I haven't spoken to you in ages."

Letty shrugged. "Your room smells, so I'd rather go to mine."

"I've hardly been in there since September, so if it smells, it's not my fault," George replied as they started walking.

"Oh? So all of that dirty laundry on the floor is just natural?" Letty replied. "If you wash it, it'll be done by the time you leave and then you won't have to worry."

"I can't be bothered," George said, "it's way too much effort."

Letty's room was super-tidy, so George made sure to take off his boots before going in. That was the sort of thing he would get shouted at for forgetting.

"I'm just gonna check my emails," Letty told him as she booted up her laptop.

George lounged around on the sofa. "I should really remember to email you more. I keep forgetting."

Letty looked at him. "Yeah, you should," she replied, throwing a balled-up sock at him. "It's so lonely without your four-word emails."

George tried to look hurt. "Hey, I put a lot of thought into those four words."

They sat in silence for a minute while Letty typed replies to some of her emails. George wanted to tell her about his mission, but Cherubs weren't supposed to reveal more details than they really had to, so he didn't say anything, but the whole thing with Rex was weighing on his mind.

"Hey, Letty?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you know that Rex has a girlfriend?"

This got Letty's attention and she spun round her office chair to face him. "Really?"

"Yeah, it's a girl from the mission. He spends all his time seeing her."

"Good for him," Letty replied. "Maybe he'll grow up a bit."

"He keeps making fun of me, though," George added. "Because I don't have a girlfriend."

Letty shrugged. "Not exactly your fault. He's just trying to get to you."

"I dunno, it feels like everyone else has girlfriends or boyfriends or whatever."

Letty laughed. "Yeah, if by everyone you mean no-one. I don't know anyone who does."

George thought about this and realised that she was right.

"Rex is just mean," Letty said. "Ignore him. I'm sure it won't be too long until you have a girlfriend."

George nodded. "You know who should be boyfriend and girlfriend?"

"Who?"

"Rex and Jemima. They'd make such a good couple," George grinned.

"Don't say that," Letty warned. "I suggested it to Jemima once and she 'accidentally' kicked me really hard in the dojo. I had a bruise for a week."

The thought made George laugh, so Letty threw another sock at him.

"Try to remember to email, though," Letty said, closing her laptop. "It makes it easier to be away if I'm constantly reminded of the dumb stuff you do."

"I will," George said, flicking the sock back at her. "Anyway, I'm gonna go and join that tournament. You can come if you want."

"Soccer and burping? I'll pass," Letty grinned.

George got up and headed for the door, picking up his boots as he went. "See you tomorrow?"

"Only if you wash your uniform. Still smells pretty bad."


	17. 17: Silence

17: Silence

Jules drove Rex and George back to Croydon a few days later, and George found himself back in the world of car theft and trips to the garage with Lucy to hang out with the friendlier mechanics. While he and Rex had been relaxing on campus, Lucy had been helping Jules go through all of the photographs that George had taken. George had expected Rex to be angry that George had stolen his thunder, but he was actually okay with it and was happy to keep up his end of the mission. Now that George and Lucy had managed to link Georgia's father, whose name turned out to be Kevin Harriman, to the car theft operation, Rex kept him under careful observation to see if he would lead to any more evidence.

"Could it just be the one guy masterminding it all?" George asked. "I know he's got a few associates, but this Kevin guy has plenty of links to the garage and it's possible for him to just be running the thing on his own."

Lucy shook her head. "Kevin works at his scrap dealership all day during the week and he spends most of the rest of his time at home with his wife. You bumping into him was a stroke of luck. He can't possibly have time to mastermind this kind of thing, although he's obviously involved in a big way."

"Maybe he does it when he has meetings at the garage?"

"Those seem to mostly be legitimate things," Lucy replied. "He is the main spare parts supplier to the garage, after all."

Jules shrugged, putting his feet up on the coffee table. "Well, at the moment we've got enough evidence to arrest Kevin, but he'll just get a slap on the wrist and a fine. It might stop the thefts, but nobody will be behind bars and that's what we want."

"There has to be someone at the garage who is equally involved," Lucy said. "They have to be the link, but I have no idea who it is."

Rex smiled. "It's like one of those mystery games; you have a list of suspects and then you have to find out who's the criminal."

"That's where you come in, Rex. Whoever the link is, he'll have to meet fairly often with Kevin. You're best placed to find out who it is. See if you can access his phone, or his diary if he has one."

Rex shrugged. "I can probably sneak into his office sometime, but it'll have to be quick."

"That's fine. We only need one piece of evidence to work it out," Jules said. "Lucy, you can keep working on the mechanics you know and see if any of them will say anything. George, I'm afraid that you'll just have to carry on and see if you get lucky again. I can't see it happening but it's better than nothing."

George was pleased that he could carry on making money, although the prospect of school again wasn't too exciting. "Right, I'll do that."

"Unfortunately until we can find out who the link is, the mission's not going to progress very fast," Jules summarised. "Sorry, but unless we can find something crucial, it may drag on until Christmas."

George was trusted by whoever was in charge of the operation and he often came home from school to find a sheet of paper in the letterbox with details of a theft for that night. He was going out three times a week and the wad of paper money down the side of his mattress was growing.

"Everything set?" he said to his lookout, a nine-year-old called Jamie who he'd worked with before.

"Yeah, here's the bits," Jamie replied, handing over a parcel wrapped in brown paper.

George was supposed to be doing some engine work on a Mercedes that was parked just around the corner. It was a quiet suburb and George felt confident as he slipped his tools out of his rucksack and expertly cracked open the bonnet and got to work. The job was fiddly but wouldn't take too long; modern cars were often fitted with a lot of electrics in the engine, which were responsible for everything from monitoring the temperature to allowing the driver to change between sport and race mode. The central processing units were often worth quite a bit of money to the right buyer, which was why George was working to remove the working unit from the Mercedes and replace it with a defunct one which looked perfectly good.

He'd managed to get at the unit and was carefully unscrewing it when he heard a rustling noise coming from the other side of the street. Nerves suddenly hit him as he peered around to see what it was. On a couple of his previous jobs, he'd practically had heart attacks from cats jumping out of bushes, so he hoped it would be something similar this time. Nothing moved as he watched, but he was reluctant to put it down to an animal unless he could be sure.

"Jamie?" he said as loud as her dared. "You there?"

There was no response. George decided to abandon the car for a minute and go to see where Jamie was. He quickly packed up his tools and dropped them into his bag before moving, leaving the car bonnet open.

"Jamie?" he asked again, finally getting a response as he nearer the corner of the street.

"Yeah?" the boy asked, looking around nervously.

"Did you hear that noise?"

"I heard it but I didn't see what made it," Jamie replied.

George thought for a moment. "Go and look around the other end of the street. I think it was probably a cat or a fox or something, but I wanna be sure."

Jamie hurried to the other end of the road as George returned to the car. He was becoming increasingly sure that it was a cat, since if it had been a person they would have been visible by now. He was considering getting out his screwdriver again and having another go and getting the unit out when he heard a shout.

"George!" Jamie yelled, coming around the corner at full tilt. George was about to open his mouth and ask what was going on, but he realised that people didn't run and shout at the top of their voice at four in the morning unless it was an emergency. He grabbed his bag and turned on his heel, just in time to spot two uniformed police officers coming around the corner after Jamie, bulked out by their stab-proof vests.

George's bag was full of specialist tools and some parts which were very suspicious, so he needed to get rid of them. He slammed the bonnet of the Mercedes down and gave it a couple of whacks with his heavy bag, before running away from the advancing police officers. As soon as he turned the corner, he swung his bag around and threw it over the fence of an electricity substation, relieved not to have to carry the weight any more. His bike was parked another street over, so he headed for it, aware of some shouting which suggested the police had caught up with Jamie.

As he ran down the next street, trying to remember exactly where his bike was, he looked over his shoulder and spotted one of the police officers charging after him, gaining quickly. He had no hope of reaching his bike, so he skidded to a halt and turned to face the officer, stepping into a combat stance.

"Alright, stay where you are," the man said, one hand on his belt. "Hands on your head."

George did a rapid mental calculation. He'd successfully got rid of his bag, but the state of the Mercedes' engine made it plain what had been going on. The policeman was slowly approaching, and George knew that he could probably overwhelm him with some karate moves, but assaulting a police officer was a serious offence and it could even endanger the mission. It was too far to run to his bike and cycle away, and any sudden movements would probably be met with the wrong end of a police baton.

He raised his hands and placed them on his head as the policeman jogged the last few yards and grabbed him, pulling his hands behind his back and slotting on plastic handcuffs.

"Right, let's get you back to the car," he said, grabbing George's arm and pulling him along. George winced because the policeman was squeezing his arm exactly where Lucy had pounded him, although the bruises were fading now.

"I've no idea what you're thinking, out at this time of night," the policeman said, giving George a jerk, "but if you've been causing trouble, you'll get worse than a night in the cells."

It wasn't the first time George had been arrested, but he knew that he ought to act the part, so he summoned tears and began to sniff.

The police weren't happy about having to process him in the middle of the night, but they still questioned him for nearly half an hour. George gave nothing away; he'd had to memorise an excuse to give the police when he'd first been doing jobs, and it came back easily. He maintained that he'd been out with a gang of older teenagers who'd all run away and that he had just been tagging along. The police bought it completely, although they did question Jamie as well, but since he was nine and he'd managed an impressively red-faced crying fit, they sent him home.

"The officers examined the car you were spotted near and found it to have a dent in the front," the woman police officer who was interviewing him said. "Do you know who did it?"

"No," George replied, "it was one the older kids but I don't know who."

"Are you sure about this?"

"Absolutely."

"Do you know the names of any of the older kids?"

"No."

She switched off the tape recorder and looked at him. "Since you're maintaining that it wasn't you but you won't tell us who it was, you'll get in trouble for what they did. The only way you can get out of this without getting into more trouble is to tell us."

"I don't know them, sorry."

"Alright, fine, have it your way. We're going to give you a youth caution, which will go on your criminal record until you turn eighteen. If you get into trouble again, you'll get a second caution, and if you get a third then you'll go to court and they'll take everything you've done into account," she explained. "Hopefully this will scare you away from causing more trouble."

George nodded and said nothing.

"We'll ring your parents and get someone to pick you up. I expect you'll want to get a couple of hours' sleep before school tomorrow," she said, getting up and showing him to the door.

"Okay," George said, rubbing one of his eyes to make it seem redder.

Jules picked George up and drove him home. It was just starting to get light, but Jules seemed alert as usual.

"They got nothing out of me, as I was instructed," George explained. "They might not trust me quite as much from here on, but it's hardly my fault."

"How come you got picked up? The local police have been making arrests to try and squeeze information out of you young ones, but I would have expected a Cherub to get away."

"I planned to, but I wasted time vandalising the car and hiding my bag," George said. "It shouldn't matter too much."

Jules nodded. "Well, so long as they don't think you told the police anything, you should be fine."

"The caution should prove that," George replied. "Anyway, I need to ring a number to explain what happened, so they can retrieve my bag and remember to steer clear of that area."

"Better do that now," Jules said. "We want them to think that you're one hundred percent reliable."

After explaining the situation to the voice on the other end of the phone and telling him where to find the bike and the bag, George started thinking.

"The excuse I was told to use if the police picked me up worked perfectly," he told Jules.

"That's good, at least," Jules replied.

George bit down on one of his fingernails. "But, don't you think it's odd that the excuse is exactly what the police want to hear? I mean, the moment I told them that there was some older kids, they didn't even question me about the car. It worked like a charm."

"That makes sense to me. The police are usually more keen on picking up older teenagers who are likely to have done a whole pile of things, rather than younger kids who are only likely to have done something once or twice."

"I know that, but why would anyone else? Any adult who'd been questioned by the police when they were younger is probably ten or more years older now, and while it makes sense when someone says it, it seems more like they know the police's methods and tactics. Seriously, the excuse was basically word-perfect."

"Are you suggesting it's a police officer who's responsible?" Jules asked, sounding incredulous. "We have zero intelligence to suggest that."

"No, but the person behind this knows the police," George said. "They've been questioned before, probably a few times."

"I can check the police database," Jules suggested. "If any of the mechanics have a criminal record they'll be on there."

"Thanks," George said, yawning. "I'll turn in for an hour or so before school."

"If you have to miss the morning or something, don't worry about it," Jules shrugged.

"Excellent," George said, grinning.

"Act a bit more miserable. You're supposed to have just got into serious trouble."


	18. 18: Cash

**18: Cash**

School was too much for George, so he stayed at home all morning, sleeping in until ten and then having a slow breakfast. He planned to go in at lunchtime and make up some excuse to explain his absence. He was already in trouble for skipping the final afternoon of term, so he thought he'd round it up to a complete day.

He was putting on his shoes to leave when his phone rang. It was Jules, so he answered.

"What's up?"

"Listen, your hunch about the police thing seems to be right. I checked all the employees of the garage and while quite a few have convictions for joyriding and theft, it's no more than you would expect for a group of young men who are interested in cars," Jules explained. "However, I thought more about what you said and the more I thought, the more I was convinced you were onto something."

"Thanks," George said, trying to fit his heel into a shoe, "but if they're all basically normal, I must've been wrong."

Jules chuckled. "That's what I thought. However, I did another check, this time looking at all of the details for each of the employees, and one detail stuck me. You're friendly with those two, Callum and John, right?"

"Yeah, so is Lucy, why?"

"Have they said anything about their parents?"

"No, not really."

"Well, it might interest you to know that Callum and John Williams are the sons of Detective Inspector Williams of the Metropolitan Police," Jules said with a flourish. "Basically, if you're looking for some guys with an inside view on how the police work, they're absolute prime candidates."

George was shocked. John and Callum had always been friendly and while everyone at the garage was a suspect, George had thought that they were basically too cool to be involved with something like this. It made perfect sense, though; they were friendly towards him while other mechanics were more likely to tell him to get lost, and they let him do some of the work that nobody else would. In fact, the afternoons he'd spent chatting with them suddenly seemed more like a recruitment test.

"That sounds right," George replied. "They're exactly the type to be involved."

"Excellent," Jules said, some happiness creeping into his tone. "George, I think you've cracked who our guys are inside the garage. Excellent work."

"Thanks," George said, feeling pretty good about himself.

"I'll tell Lucy to keep an eye on them. We can't confirm anything yet, but this is the strongest lead we have. I'll see you when I get back."

George had a wide grin when he dropped his phone back into his trouser pocket. That was the kind of thing that scored you a navy shirt. He was in much too good a mood to spend his afternoon in a history lesson, but he had nothing else to do. He finished putting on his shoes and locked the door as he left.

He was walking down the road towards school when he spotted Georgia's dad, Kevin, walking in the opposite direction, wheeling a bike.

"This yours?" Kevin said, smiling.

"Yeah…" George said, trying to get over his shock of seeing someone they suspected walking down the road towards him. A smile returned to his face when he checked the bike and realised it was intact. "Thanks for getting it."

"No problem," Kevin replied. "Also, I heard that you've got yourself a caution for last night?"

George shrugged. "Yeah, but it's no big deal. The police just blamed me for vandalising the car."

"Well, we sent a guy over and he replaced everything you'd moved inside the car, so there's no chance of getting blamed there. You did a great job of keeping the police away," Kevin smiled, giving George a fist bump. "We like to look after kids who get into bother with the police, so long as you didn't tell them anything."

"Of course not."

"Excellent. Well, this is for you," he said, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a slightly damp envelope full of cash. "It's a grand for keeping your mouth shut, plus the fifty we owed for last night. You didn't get the job done but I reckon you deserve it."

George's eyes lit up when he spotted the wodge of notes. "Thanks," he grinned. "Am I gonna get any more jobs?"

"Probably not," Kevin said, sucking air between his teeth. "While I trust you, the police might be keeping an eye on you, so we can't have you leading them to anything they shouldn't see, even if you don't mean to. I'm old friends with a couple of guys at the station, which is why I came personally."

"What about in a few weeks?"

"We'll see. If you're still keen, we'll get in touch," Kevin said. "Anyway, I'd best get back to work, I'm losing my lunch break. Enjoy."

Kevin walked back up the road and George carefully stashed the money in his pocket. He'd told Jules about the one-thousand pound reward for getting a caution, so the whole lot was going to be confiscated as soon as he knew about it. That only left George with one option; to spend it before Jules could get hold of it.

By the time Jules got home, George had ditched the afternoon's school and cycled into the centre of Croydon, buying himself a brand new PlayStation and as many games as he wanted. Ollie had told him about an independent games shop which would sell all of the 18-rated games to kids, and he'd dropped in there to get the latest Grand Theft Auto and a few shooting games that had caught his eye. He'd spent the remainder of the afternoon in front of the television, trying them out.

"New PlayStation?" Jules asked as he walked in, raising an eyebrow. Rex had just got back from seeing Georgia and they were playing multiplayer FIFA.

"Yeah," George said, guiltily. "Kevin returned my bike here and gave me the money for getting a caution. I checked and it was all mixed denominations and non-sequential serial numbers, so it couldn't be traced." He hadn't paused the game, so Rex was pushing into his penalty area.

Jules shrugged. "You know you're supposed to give back all the money you get from criminal activities, but really that's something you need to discuss with your handler. I'll let it slide, but be warned, they usually take a dim view of this kind of thing. You may find you lose your money from Cherub for a long time."

George didn't really care. The one thing he'd wanted was a PlayStation, so even if they stopped his money for a year, he still wouldn't have much else to save up for.

"Anyway, you two, we're gonna have a meeting to discuss your breakthrough, George, so make sure you're around when Lucy gets back from her shift. Did you make it to school, George?"

"Nah, by the time I was awake and everything, it was too late to make the afternoon lesson," George lied.

"Alright. I'll square it with the school if needs be," Jules said.

"There's one other thing. When I was speaking to Kevin, he said he was old friends with some people at the police station, which was why he could talk to me personally."

Jules thought for a moment. "That might be worth looking into. I'll do some checks when I'm back at the office. Anyway, Rex, it's your birthday coming up, so I was wondering if you want to do anything specific?"

Rex paused the game and shrugged. "Not really."

"I'll try and get a cake or something, and campus will forward your cards. You'll just have to be careful to hide anything with an eleven on it. Anyway, don't play too long, it rots your brain."

Once Jules was out of earshot, George looked at Rex.

"Told you he'd be cool with it," he grinned.

"You're _so_ lucky," Rex complained. "I'm getting nothing except my CHERUB pocket money and you're gonna finish the mission with a couple of grand to your name."

"What can I say?" George smirked, "I'm just the best."

Lucy was keeping an eye on Callum and John and Rex was sneaking into Kevin's office whenever he could. There wasn't much information forthcoming, but they were solid leads and every bit of evidence they turned up pointed to the fact that they were all guilty. George had very little to do except continue attending school and hanging out with Ollie and the other kids who were involved. He spent most of his spare time on the PlayStation, whether it was by himself or with Rex or Ollie. Jules wasn't very pleased that he was sitting around all day, but with no jobs to do, George couldn't help the mission progress.

"You can go with Lucy and see if you can turn up anything at the garage," Jules finally said after George had spent an entire weekend in front of the TV. "She's working later now so you might pick up some news of illegal stuff."

"Fine," George said, saving the game. "I'll cycle over and make up some excuse. She probably won't be too pleased to see me."

"So long as you're out of the house," Jules replied. "You're supposed to be on a mission, not on holiday."

It was a Sunday night, so George was expecting the place to be dead, but when he pulled up on his bike it was obvious that something was going on. There were plenty of voices rising above the engine noise, and he cycled cautiously over, not wanting to get knocked down by a rogue car.

The sources of the noise were four cars, all heavily modified. George spotted Lucy sitting on the bonnet of a yellow Subaru and homed in.

"What're you doing here," Lucy asked, looking irritated.

"I'm not allowed to spend all evening on the PlayStation so you have to put up with me," George replied. "What's going on?"

Lucy finished her cigarette and flicked it away. "These guys are only here to talk and get a couple of bits of work done, but I hear there might be some other stuff going on later. I was planning on going home though, most people do."

George sighed. He looked longingly at the cars and imagined driving one of them around, foot flat to the floor, taking corners with screeching tyres and maybe some pursuing police cars. The reality of it were some middle-aged men dressed in tight t-shirts and with faded tattoos on their arms talking to each other while younger men stared at their cars. Lucy had been sitting with one of the older guys, admiring his car.

"Do you really like that guy?" George asked, "He's creepy."

Lucy smiled "He's way too old for me, don't worry. Problem is, the only guys with nice cars are always old guys who've had time to save up."

"Should I hang around until later?" George asked, feeling out of place amongst the older crowd. "John and Callum and that lot aren't here, so I have no-one to talk to."

"They're coming later, I think," Lucy replied. "There's probably some dodgy stuff going on."

George got a whiff of her breath and realised that while the older guys weren't drinking so they could drive back safely, most other people were. Lucy just giggled at him and went off to talk to someone he didn't recognise, so George decided to go and see if there was anyone around willing to talk to an eleven-year-old. He didn't feel too hopeful.


	19. 19: Joyride

**19: Joyride**

While George was definitely too young for the crowd at the garage, the older blokes cleared off after a while so they could get home to their kids, leaving a bunch of older teenagers with plenty of cans of lager and not much to do. It didn't take a genius to know that something was going to happen, and it probably wasn't going to belegal.

George worked this out at the same time as one of the head mechanics of the garage, who turned up and told everyone to clear off or they'd call the police. George was disappointed that his evening was going to finish before anything interesting happened, but he'd made friends with a group of teenagers who were about sixteen or seventeen and didn't fancy going home so they could get a good night's sleep.

"What do you reckon?" one of them said as they walked along the street, occasionally throwing a crumpled lager can into someone's hedge.

"No idea," Damien said, startling George because he hadn't realised that Damien was there.

"We've gotta do something, this is boring."

"Give the little kid a can, it'll be funny," Damien slurred. George realised that Damien had probably had more than a few cans, and when he finally got given a can, he just drank a couple of mouthfuls. It didn't taste very nice and he wanted to spit it out, but he swallowed it so he'd seem cool and then swung the can in his hand, occasionally tipping some out.

Damien whispered in George's ear, which was an unpleasant experience. "Your sister is hot," he managed to say. George screwed up his face, feeling disgusted.

"Is my brother here?" George heard Lucy's voice, and he eventually spotted her at the back of the group. He hung back and managed to lob his half-full can into a bush.

"What's up?" he asked.

"I heard a rumour that this lot might be going on a joyride," Lucy shrugged. "I came along to see if it was true and maybe watch."

George hoped that he'd get to watch some action. Being indoors on the PlayStation was alright, but he had missed the excitement of being out at night and doing jobs. His wish was granted when the loudest of the teenagers spotted a big-looking Alfa Romeo parked on a driveway.

"Watch this," he grinned, pulling out a screwdriver and popping the door open.

"Alright!" another guy shouted, pulling the door open and leaping into the driver's seat. "I'm driving."

"No way, you're smashed," his mate replied, dragging him back out. "We need someone who's pretty much sober."

George half-expected the car's owner to appear and chase them off, especially since they were making such a racket, but it didn't happen and the teens bickered over who would be allowed to drive.

"Who's sober?" one of them shouted, before falling over laughing.

"I'm sober," George shouted back, grinning. Lucy gave him a dark look.

"Don't encourage them. This is how people get hurt," she said, but George ignored her. He jogged forwards and got into the driver's seat, pulling it all the way forwards.

"Let the little kid drive," someone said, slamming their hand on the roof of the car.

The guy who'd got the door open messed around with some wires underneath the steering wheel and got the car to start. George had never driven something this big, but it was fundamentally the same as any other car, so he put it into reverse and slowly inched out of the driveway, scattering everyone hanging around behind. When he stopped, the passenger door opened and Lucy climbed in.

"If you're gonna be stupid, at least let me help," she giggled. Some of the drunken teens climbed into the back and arranged themselves as George pulled forwards, being cautious with his speed at first.

"Go round the block a few times," Lucy suggested. "If you go too far, it'll get boring."

George cruised well below the speed limit, getting a feel for the big engine and the responsive steering.

"Put your foot down!" a voice shouted right in his ear. George laughed and increased the speed a little. He enjoyed driving and since he was never going to be allowed another chance to go out on the roads in a big car until he was much older, he made the most and floored it, jerking back in his seat as the car jumped forwards. He touched fifty before pushing the brake and taking a corner at thirty-five, sending the lads in the back flying to one side. George found a comfortable speed and went round the block, flooring it again when he drove past the group that they'd left behind.

"Same again, but if you push the accelerator too far down while you're pulling away, it'll spin the wheels," Lucy advised. George tried and just ended up blasting away down the road and nearly colliding with the kerb but when he tried for a second time he got a satisfying cloud of smoke. Happy, he picked up speed and weaved through the suburban streets, longing to get onto a motorway or something and really get it up to speed. He took a corner too fast and skidded across the roadway, narrowly missing a parked car, but he saved it and took the next corner a bit more cautiously. The guys in the back were loving every minute of being driven around by an eleven year old, and they were slopping beer everywhere and yelling obscenities out of the windows every chance they got.

"Try a handbrake turn," Lucy suggested. "Just brake hard, turn in one direction then pull on the handbrake and let the momentum do the rest."

Trying to master a handbrake turn with a heavy car full of drunks wasn't easy, and George spent most of his time mounting the pavement or trying to do three-point-turns to get the car facing in the right direction. When he finally managed something close to a handbrake turn, he just ended up stalling it and pointing the wrong way, to everyone's delight. He returned to where everyone was waiting and spun the wheels again, getting a loud cheer, but before he could pull away, the guys in the back threw the doors open and jumped out. George realised why a fraction of a second later; there were blue lights flashing in the road behind him, but he was already committed to pulling away and he found himself pushing the accelerator with his heart in his mouth. If they got caught, he'd get into all kinds of trouble, and he could feel his stomach churning. He missed a gear and the car coasted for a few seconds while he fought to find the right gear again.

"Alright, take a left," Lucy said, suddenly sounding much more sober. George followed her directions, going as quickly as he dared.

"Go right, then right as soon as possible," Lucy said, turning in her seat to look at the police car that was pursuing. George pulled onto a main road, with the two carriageways separated by a central lane used for turning right.

"Get into the centre lane and floor it. You've got about a mile of clear road to get ahead, then turn left when I say," Lucy said. George pushed the accelerator all the way down, watching the speedometer climbing past sixty, seventy, then eighty.

"Alright, brake hard then go left," Lucy said. "We're away from them now."

George didn't brake enough and the car skidded, but thankfully the only damage was a hard thump against the kerb. He picked up speed again, the gears crunching as he missed one and ended up two lower than he'd expected.

"Right, then pull up in front of a house and get out and run towards the house," Lucy said in a calm voice. "I'll follow you. The police will follow, but just keep running in a straight line. You'll come out on the road in front of the garage," she explained.

Once he'd come to a jarring halt, stalling the car, George threw open the door and sprinted blindly towards the house. There was a side gate which he vaulted, followed moments later by Lucy. They sprinted through a well-kept garden, trampling a flowerbed, and then followed an alleyway which came out on the road they wanted.

"I've got the car, so I'll drive off. You get your bike and cycle off as soon as you can," Lucy explained, pulling the keys out of her bag.

"Are you okay to drive?" George asked.

"Yeah, it's only a short distance," Lucy said. "I'll meet you at home."

George grabbed his bike from the back of the garage and rode off, going for the most direct route home. He couldn't see any police, but that didn't stop his heart from pounding. He cycled the fastest he could ever remember going, dropping off a few kerbs far too quickly and nearly losing control. A distant siren gave him a fresh round of nerves, but it was going the wrong way and he got back without any problems.

"What's up?" Jules asked when he came in, panting hard. "Lucy just got back too, but she's in the kitchen getting a drink."

George walked through to the kitchen, dying for some water. Lucy had already run him a glass and he gulped it down as quickly as he could before refilling it.

"We went for a joyride," Lucy explained when she'd caught her breath. "Some guys were showing off and George ended up driving. The police arrived, but we got away."

"Did they follow you here?" Jules asked, dropping the worried act and going into his usual businesslike mode.

Lucy shook her head. "We lost them. They didn't spot our car, but they might still link it to us because of fingerprints and stuff."

"Not your brightest idea ever," Jules said, looking at George. "If you'd got arrested, you would have seriously harmed the mission."

"Sorry," George said, going back for a third glass of water. "I suppose I was just bored of having nothing to do."

Jules didn't seem sympathetic. "You should direct your energies to something useful, not getting in trouble with the local police."

"Sorry. It's partly my fault," Lucy said, giving George a nudge. "I should've stopped him, but by the time I knew what was going on it was a bit late."

Jules nodded. "Well, it's a first mission and I wasn't expecting you to be perfect. I'll go into the office tomorrow and get the police to forget all about this so you don't get questioned. If the car is mostly intact, the owner won't kick up a fuss."

"We just bailed out and ran," Lucy said. "Car should be fine."

"Well then, looks like this hasn't done too much harm. Probably a good lesson in what not to do," Jules agreed. "George, you should get to bed. School tomorrow."

George nodded and headed for the stairs, feeling exhausted but excited. Not many Cherubs had high-speed car chases to talk about, even if it had only lasted about two minutes.

"Oh, and George?"

George paused and turned around to see what Jules wanted.

"Remember, it's Rex's birthday next week. I want to see some concrete progress by then."

"Okay boss."


	20. 20: Promotion

**20: Promotion**

George had tried to seem cool in front of Jules while he was running on adrenaline, but by the next morning he'd calmed down and realised how close he'd been to blowing the mission. News of his antics was sure to reach the ears of some senior people, both in the local police and elsewhere. The idea of an eleven-year-old who could drive would attract lots of attention, no matter how much George kept his head down from then on. He worried about being picked up by the police; a second caution meant the organisation was guaranteed to ignore him for the rest of his time on the mission. However, it wasn't the police that found him first.

It was too damp to go out to play football, so George spent most afternoons at Ollie's house. It was dark by five o'clock, so he usually walked home in the orange glow of the streetlights. It didn't take long before he was grabbed unceremoniously by the collar of his school shirt and dragged into an alleyway full of wheelie bins.

"Listen kid," a voice said threateningly while George thrashed around trying to get free. "You've been causing us a lot of trouble."

When George paused for a moment, looking for an opening to floor his attacker, he realised he recognised the voice. "Callum?" he asked, trying to turn his head and get a look.

The game was up, so Callum let go of George's collar and gave him a shove. "Yeah, alright. John, come out here, he worked out it was me."

John stepped out from behind one of the wheelie bins, looking angry. "I told you we should have got someone else to do this," he said, shaking his head with contempt. "Duffing up a kid isn't right."

Callum shrugged and turned back to George. "We heard all about your stunt driving the other day and we're not happy," he said, bunching a fist.

"Why?" George asked, backing up until he felt the brick wall of the alleyway. "Why does it bother you?"

John and Callum exchanged glances and George wondered if he'd stumbled across a flaw in their plan.

"Never mind why," Callum continued, "You just do as I say. I don't wanna catch you doing anything like that again, got it?"

George nodded quickly. "Alright, if you say so."

"We hear another report from the police about a kid behind the wheel and I'll be stepping on your kneecaps."

Despite Callum's size, George wasn't intimidated. He'd faced bigger opponents in the dojo. "I'm just bored, since I'm not out doing jobs any more," George complained. "If I had something to do, I would probably stay out of trouble."

John nodded and took over from Callum. "Listen, there's not many kids your age who can get away from a tailing police car like you did. If you've got a taste for money then we might be able to fix you up with some real work."

"I'm always ready to get money," George replied. "When can I start?"

Callum laughed. "The kid's keen."

"This is serious," John said, grabbing George's shirt roughly. "You breathe a word to anyone or have another late-night session with the police, I wouldn't like to be in your shoes the next day." He let go. "How'd you like to give up all of the messing about with nicking parts and stuff and actually do some driving?"

It was for the good of the mission that George needed to get involved, but the bonus of getting to drive some more practically had him drooling. The near-miss with the police had only boosted his enthusiasm. "I'm up for that," he said quickly.

"It's simple. We tell you where the car is, you nick it, drive it to where we say, then go home like nothing happened. If the police stop you, you're on your own, but if you keep your mouth shut and spin them a lie about running away from home, we'll cover any fines you get," Callum said, crushing an empty milk bottle under his trainer. "Easy enough, and since you're a kid, they'll believe anything you tell them."

George nodded. "When will you tell me what car to nick?"

John shrugged. "This stuff is strictly between us. None of the whole network that you've seen in the past, so only listen to instructions you get from Callum or me."

"Roger. You can trust me."

John and Callum made to leave, so George relaxed a little, but Callum swivelled around and booted him in the side, taking him by surprise. He toppled into a bin and cracked his head on the plastic, but Callum just laughed and jogged away.

The ground was wet from rain during the day and it soaked through George's trousers as he pulled himself off the ground and inspected the damage, wincing from the pain. He didn't think it was any worse than bruising and a few grazes where he'd broken his fall with his hand, but it was still pretty humiliating. He walked back towards home, wondering how he had ever actually liked Callum.

George told Jules all about the meeting once he'd changed out of his wet clothes. Both Jules and Lucy said he should go for it, because it was the best lead they'd had for the whole mission. George didn't really share their enthusiasm, so Lucy explained.

"If your guess about John and Callum thinking up the child tactics is right, then you're in the perfect position to bring them down," she said. "The key thing about the parts theft is that it's basically untraceable and the vast majority of the crimes go totally unnoticed or unreported. But when it comes to stealing an entire car, there are plenty of security systems in place."

"Surely the point of stealing them is to get round the security systems?" George asked, crunching his way through a slice of toast.

Lucy shook her head. "Not just stuff to stop you from stealing the car, but there are security measures after that. Number plate recognition cameras, GPS trackers, even the serial numbers on the parts give us a great opportunity to see where everything ends up and trace who's involved."

Jules agreed. "We were never particularly likely to catch John and Callum with the current evidence, but if they're involved in stealing whole cars then it will be much easier to get them behind bars."

"If the other thing is so secure, why are they branching out into something risky?" George asked.

"That's the million-pound question," Jules replied. "It could be that they're just greedy, it could be that they're not behind the other operation and so they don't get much of a cut, or maybe they're just opportunists and they've got a tip-off."

"The key thing is proving a link between all the operations and John and Callum," Lucy said. "If you can do that, then we can probably wrap up the mission."

George smiled at the thought of completing the mission successfully.

"Just wait for them to contact you and we'll go from there," Jules said. "Somehow your little adventure actually seems to have cracked this mission open, but I think we were due a little bit more luck. Campus was talking about shutting us down if we didn't get results before Christmas, since it's all gone stale lately."

Lucy gave George a pat on the shoulder. "Good thing we're all sorted in the luck department, then. George is the jammiest."

The most important thing about the new development was that George was in regular contact with Callum and John. They seemed to think that if they kept their eye on him, he wouldn't get into any more trouble, which meant that George got to spend the occasional afternoon at the garage talking to them or sitting in their car, which was a custom-modified Ford that they'd worked on together.

"Managed to squeeze another ten horsepower out of the engine just by fitting a minor modification to the exhaust," Callum boasted. "Bought the part for less than ten quid."

George hadn't forgiven Callum for kicking him, but he reckoned that the fastest way to get revenge was to act friendly so they'd give him more intelligence, then have the last laugh when the police moved in. He wasn't so sure about John, though; he was actually really cool and even though he was involved in a load of criminal stuff, George felt bad about spying on him. If he was in charge of the operation, he'd indirectly got George his PlayStation and out of everyone at the garage, he was the one who trusted him the most and let him actually do interesting things, instead of getting him to make mugs of tea all of the time.

It was child's play to fit a tiny bug into their car. It could be remotely monitored, but once they'd tested it to see that it was working, nobody bothered listening. Lots of what they said to each other could easily be used as evidence, but it was worthless unless they could get some hard evidence.

"They never seem to mention their dad," Lucy said after she'd whiled away an hour flicking through recordings. "I don't think he's involved."

George shrugged. "When they were talking to me they said that they'd heard about me from the police."

"I expect their dad probably told them, because it's hardly every day that you have to deal with an eleven-year-old joyrider, but it doesn't mean he's guilty of anything else," Lucy said, pulling on the overalls she wore to work.

"You might be right." George rested his head on the dining table. "Jules says that we have enough for a conviction but we need something better."

"Keep your eyes open for when they want you to do some stealing, then," Lucy said. "That'll give us the evidence we need."

George groaned. "It's so boring hanging around at home all day, though."

"I'm going out so you'll have to whine to someone else," Lucy said, flicking his ear. "Anyway, you spent all that money on a PlayStation, so why not use it?"

"It's only really fun if you play multiplayer," George complained, but he made up his mind to spend an hour on FIFA anyway.

"You should invite Rex to play with you. You're supposed to be nice to him, since it's his birthday tomorrow," Lucy reminded him. "Did you get a present?"

George nodded. "Got him a gift card for his phone so he can buy some more games or something."

"I feel sorry for him because his role in the mission hasn't been much to write about," Lucy shrugged.

"Without him we wouldn't be able to catch Georgia's dad," George said. "That's pretty good, isn't it?"

"I suppose. Anyway, I'm off, catch you later," Lucy said, grabbing the car keys before slamming the front door behind her.

George ambled into the living room for a round of FIFA, making a mental note to ask Rex for a game when he got back from Georgia's house.


	21. 21: Bug

**21: Bug**

Rex opened his cards and presents over breakfast. Jules had bought him a couple of martial arts DVDs that he wasn't old enough to watch, and Lucy had just gone for a big box of sweets. Rex seemed pleased with the gift card from George and the boys exchanged high fives.

"I've got loads of cards from campus," Rex said, tearing into the first ones. "Even got one from America."

"That'll be from Letty," George guessed. "I'm surprised she knows when your birthday is."

Rex ignored him. He was actually turning eleven and most of the cards had the number on the front somewhere, so he had to hide them since his real mission age was supposed to be twelve.

"I'm going to Georgia's after school," Rex explained. "We're gonna go to the cinema or something."

"Ooh, get you," George grinned. "Off on a grown-up date with your girlfriend. Does she know you're only just eleven?"

Rex tutted. "Obviously not. Anyway, we're going with her parents, so shut up."

George laughed. "So romantic." He tried to think up something else to say, but something came through the letterbox and interrupted him.

"Probably the post," Rex said, ignoring his half-finished cereal and tucking into a packet of wine gums that Lucy had bought him.

"Nah, it never comes until later," George said, picking a brown envelope off the doormat. "I've been picking it up when I get back from school lately."

"Who's it from?"

There was nothing written on the envelope, so George slide his finger under the flap to open it. Inside was a sheaf of papers, and the top one had a colour picture of a mid-range BMW and some technical details.

"Looks like it's the job I'm supposed to do," George said, flicking through and finding details for disabling the alarm and starting the engine without the key. "Tonight, apparently."

"Need me to go? I can get out of the cinema thing," Rex asked.

George shook his head. "I might need you, but it won't be until the middle of the night."

Rex nodded. "Well, enjoy that. I'm off to school."

"Hang on, I'll come with you," George said, putting the paper back into the envelope and hiding it down the back of the sofa. "Just let me find my shoes."

George texted Jules to let him know what was going on, so when he got home that afternoon he found both Jules and Lucy sitting at the dining table, the contents of the envelope spread out in front of them.

"Welcome back," Jules said. "There's snacks and things in the fridge, I swung by the supermarket on my way home."

"I persuaded Damien to take over my afternoon shift," Lucy said. explaining why she was home early.

George nodded. "Rex should be here in a minute."

Once all four of them were present, Jules rubbed his hands together and smiled.

"Right, first things first, Rex, when do you need to leave?"

"Six," Rex replied, checking his watch out of habit. "That's when they're picking me up."

"Excellent. And you'll be back around nine?"

Rex nodded. "If I get held up, I'll text you."

Jules gathered up the papers in front of him. "Okay, now as the three of you should know, this job represents our best chance of really nailing the whole organisation. Lucy and I have been monitoring the bug in Callum and John's car for most of the afternoon so far, but they're at work so it's not picking anything up."

"They're supposed to work the afternoon shift today, so I expect they'll probably be heading home at around eight," Lucy said. "We'll be listening out for it."

"We can't rely on the two of them spelling out every word, so I've come up with a plan, although it's not finished," Jules announced, pushing a sheet of paper over to George and Rex. It was handwritten and covered in notes. "It'll need all three of you, so listen closely.

"George, you'll go along with the job as requested. It says here that to make sure you get to the right place, Callum and John will drive you there and then keep watch from their car. This provides a good opportunity for you to try and get them to say incriminating statements. Once you're there, pretend to work on the car and make it look convincing.

"Lucy, you'll drive with Rex and follow George. Once George is out of the car, we need to lure both of them out of the car. Then Lucy can get in and drive their car to a friendly police station in northeast London. George, depending on the situation, you can either jump in with Lucy or go around the corner and drive away with Rex. With incriminating statements recorded, and hopefully their car full of stolen parts, we'll be able to arrest them."

Jules looked smug, but George wasn't convinced.

"How do we get both of them out of the car? There's no way they're stupid enough to both get out."

"I think it can be done," Jules replied. "We just need to come up with some way of forcing them out. The moment they're out, Lucy can get in and she'll be driving away in seconds."

Rex nodded. "How do you know it'll have stolen parts in it? Are we gonna plant them?"

"Unfortunately, planting stuff just doesn't hold up in court, but we've got an ace up our sleeve."

Lucy smirked. "While they were busy in the garage at lunchtime, I went round to their car and cracked open the boot. Apart from a few stolen parts which may tie them to some of the other thefts, there were a pile of documents similar to the ones that George used to get. Assuming they don't empty the boot, which is still a possibility, the police will have a field day with all of it."

George was starting to feel more confident, but the gap in the plan was bothering him. "If we manage to get both of them out and get the car away, it'll rely on me being able to outrun them to where Rex is waiting."

"I applied for permission to take a fast car from campus in case things went wrong, but it was denied at such short notice," Jules said, "So I'm afraid it'll just be our car. I'll be sat here, monitoring as best I can. If things start to slide, I'll have the local police down there in a flash, don't worry."

"What if," Rex started, "George plants something like a gas canister in the car to knock them out?"

Jules considered this. "Our problem is that we don't want them to suspect foul play. A gas canister would make it obvious they were set up."

"If Lucy drives off in their car, it'll look like a joyride, and then it won't be surprising if the police get hold of it," George worked out. "All we need to do is get them out."

This was the problem and they all sat in silence for a few moments, thinking about it.

"Can you ring campus and ask some of the experts? Surely one of the other mission controllers will have had a similar situation," Rex suggested.

Jules shrugged. "It'll make me look bad, so I'd keep it as a last resort."

Eventually it was Lucy who came up with the solution, but Rex had left to go to the cinema, so she wrote down the key details to show him later.

"George, you unlock the car as normal, but once you get the door open, pretend you've dropped something heavy on your foot or you've trodden on a nail or something. If you act like you've broken your foot, one of them will come to your rescue."

"What if they just drive off?" George asked.

Lucy shrugged. "If that's the case, we can pull you out of there quite easily, but with the car door open, I would expect one of them to at least come over and drive away in the stolen car. They wouldn't pass up a nearly-finished job."

"Better hope so," George replied.

"Anyway, once one of them gets out, I'll go round the back of their car and start messing around with the exhaust or something. Knowing how much they love their car, the other one is practically certain to get out to see what's going on. I'll lay him out and drive off. George, you hit the other one and run off."

It wasn't particularly elegant, but George thought it would work. Rex would be on standby to pick him up or make a distraction if needed.

"I don't know if they'd believe I dropped something on my foot," George said.

"Well, how about broken glass? You can take a razor blade or something and slice open your palm, that'll mean loads of blood and if you do your left hand, you can't change gear or anything unless it's bandaged up," Lucy suggested. "They can hardly ignore it if you're dripping blood."

George didn't like the idea of cutting open his hand, but when he opened his mouth to complain, Jules interrupted.

"We're going with that unless you can come up with a better idea, George," he said firmly. "It may sound painful but it'll heal in a week or so and it's the only way we can guarantee success."

George slumped back in his chair. "Fine," he said, examining the palm of his hand. "It had better be worth it."

Rex agreed that the plan would work, and especially liked the part where George would have to hurt himself. He and Lucy deliberately broke a glass in the kitchen sink and selected a particularly vicious-looking piece for George to use.

"Don't be a baby," Lucy said as George turned white just from looking at it. "The nastier it looks the easier it'll be to cut yourself. I'll wrap it up so you can just grab it when you need it."

"Take a roll of bandage in your pocket," Jules advised. "Then, once you're in the car, you can patch it up so you're not spreading blood all over the interior."

George was feeling nervous. It was the biggest moment of his career at CHERUB and when the clock ticked past ten o'clock, he realised that in less than six hours, he'd either be a hero or he'd be looking at his last chance going down the toilet. Lucy did some last-minute mechanical checks on the car and Rex stuffed his face with sweets, but George was too jittery to do anything except chew his nails and try to watch rubbish TV to take his mind off it.

"George? Sounds like they're on their way," Jules said. He was sitting behind a laptop which was picking up the signals from the bug with headphones on. "They're talking. I'll keep listening to see if they say anything interesting, but you need to go and get ready."

George pulled on his trainers and zipped up his jacket, but he'd basically been ready for hours and the waiting was making him feel worse. He checked he had his phone and some money, but when he was feeling around in his pockets for the various tools he needed to break into the car, his hand brushed the well-wrapped shard of glass and he suddenly felt like he was going to be sick.


	22. 22: Chase

**22: Chase**

Callum and John had said they'd arrive at exactly midnight, so George waited on the drive for them. They pulled up less than a minute later and George climbed into the back, trying to make sure nothing fell out of his pockets.

"Good evening," John grinned. "Feeling nervous?"

"A little," George said, wishing he could throw up.

"That's good. Keeps you on your toes," Callum said, pulling away from the kerb and heading for the main road out of Croydon. John, in the passenger seat, had a London A-Z street map spread out on his lap.

"So, you know everything you need to do?" John asked, looking around at George. "Didn't forget anything?"

"No, I'm fine," George said, trying to keep his mind off things by thinking about football.

"Good man. Here's your directions to the garage you're going to leave the car at," John said, handing him a small sheet of paper with a list of directions on it. "If the police pull you over, you'll have to eat this."

George nodded and looked down it. "So the garage is on Falmouth Road, just past the supermarket?" he asked, deliberately reading out the address so Jules would hear it.

"Yup," Callum said, keeping his eyes on the road. "It's easy to find. We've known the guys down there for ages and they're solid as a rock."

"None better when it comes to shipping a nicked car off to Romania or wherever," John smiled. "By the time you get back into bed, it'll probably be on its way to a ship in Felixstowe or something."

"So, did you plan this all out? It's a long way from Croydon," George asked.

"What do you care?" Callum said in a nasty tone, but John was more friendly.

"We planned it, but an associate picked out the car. They've got a well-known security flaw with the push-button ignition. Just be careful you don't stall it or you'll never get it started again."

George nodded. "Will do."

Despite both Callum and John saying they weren't nervous, they both went quiet when they got close to the area and George couldn't get any more out of them. He just sat in the back and worried about every tiny detail of the plan. Lucy was supposed to have followed him, but it would have been easy to lose him somewhere and a million different things could easily go wrong.

Callum stopped the car on the corner of the street. George looked out of the window and recognised the car he was supposed to steal. It was in the perfect location; driver's door on the road side and on a street with parking on both sides, so it was unlikely any residents would bother him. Callum and John could see him clearly from their car, so he climbed out and, after a quick look around for any lurking pedestrians, walked over to where the car was.

Once again he wished that Lucy or Rex could give him a sign, but when he looked around he could see nothing except parked cars. He wasted as much time as he dared before starting work on the car. The instructions he'd been given were very clear and an idiot could have done it, so George didn't have much room to waste any more time before Callum and John would get suspicious. He quickly worked his way through the list of instructions to cancel the electronic alarm and to get through the door locks, and was rewarded when the door popped open after five minutes of fiddling around. He glanced over his shoulder to ensure Callum and John were still watching, then he put the false key into the ignition slot and stood up a little, fishing the broken glass out of his pocket. It looked even worse unwrapped than it had at home, but the whole mission hinged on it. George took a deep breath, bit his tongue and gripped the glass hard. It sliced into his hand and a dribble of blood immediately began to run down his wrist. He dropped the glass onto the pavement and kicked it under the car, before turning to Callum and John and waving his arm, hoping the bright red would attract them. The pain was worse than he'd feared and he could feel tears forming, and there was a lot more blood than he'd expected.

It took a minute, but John climbed out of the passenger seat and walked over to him like he owned the street. Once he got close he spotted the blood which was now covered all of George's forearm as he half-heartedly tried to stem it with his shirt.

"Broken glass," George hissed, blinking back his tears. "Must've been on the road."

"How did you get it in your hand?" John asked, but he shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Can you drive?"

George shook his head. "Not a chance, there's blood everywhere." He sniffed.

John looked at the open door and the key in the ignition slot. "Alright, you go back to Callum and I'll drive this away. Explain to him what's going on, will you?"

George looked over at Callum. When Lucy managed to overwhelm him and get into the car, he was expecting to see headlights, but there was nothing, and before George could say anything, John had climbed into the BMW and was trying to get it to start.

"What're you waiting for?" John said quickly, sounding urgent. "Go back to the car!"

There was nothing else for it. George set off at a fast walk towards the dark outline of the car, hearing the one behind him start up. As he got close, he heard a shout, followed by a door slam and the headlights suddenly came on. George ran to the passenger door and threw it open, not sure whether to expect Callum or Lucy in the driving seat.

Thankfully it was Lucy, and she pulled away with the wheels screeching the moment George was off the pavement.

"I ballsed it up," Lucy said urgently, pulling into the street that George had been on until moments ago with Callum sprinting after them. George spotted John's bewildered face behind the wheel of the BMW he'd been stealing, but it was gone in a flash.

"Callum took forever to get out of the car, and then he moved at the last second when I went to hit him," Lucy said bitterly. "He'll be feeling it tomorrow, but he wasn't out cold like I wanted."

George had stuffed his hand full of gauze and was wrapping it in bandage. "I'll ring Rex and tell him to get out of here."

"Good idea," Lucy said, looking in her rearview mirror as another set of lights appeared. "Someone's following us in the nicked car."

Once Rex was up to speed with the situation, George turned in his seat. Despite Lucy's driving skills, John was gaining on them.

"Why is he so fast?" George asked, watching the speedometer climbing past sixty mph.

Lucy shrugged, her eyes glued to the road. "He's driving a stolen car, so he doesn't care if he crashes it. If I crash this, we're probably due a serious beating and the mission will be wrecked, so I've got to take care."

On the tight streets of suburban London the BMW behind gained a lot of time, and there was a hairy section where George thought they were going to get rammed from behind, but Lucy managed to swerve into another side street in time. It was only when they started to hit the more open A-roads that Lucy finally managed to pull away a little.

"Use your phone to work out a route to that police station," Lucy said, pulling a sheet of paper with the address on it out of her pocket and throwing it at George. "I can probably lose them now, but I want to be at the police station as soon as possible."

George realised after a few second of wrangling with the GPS on his phone that Jules could hear them through the bug.

"Jules?" he said, waiting for a reply before realising he was an idiot. "They're in the stolen car and we've just lost them somewhere on the South Circular. Can you get police to pick them up?"

No sooner were the words out of George's mouth than blue flashing lights appeared ahead. Lucy swore and took a hard corner to avoid them.

"If they stop us we'll never be able to explain," Lucy said while George watched street lights flashing past at more than seventy mph. "This car has a bit of speed when it wants it, but it takes corners terribly."

"Keep going," George said uselessly, staring at his phone which was confused by the sudden change of direction. "I can't really work out where to go."

Lucy shook her head. "Alright, it's gonna be too difficult winding through here. I'll just go back to the main road and hope that no police cars are going to sacrifice themselves."

George had to give the police credit. They mostly managed to keep up with Lucy all the way through London, although he suspected it was mostly because of the helicopter that was circling above them. He didn't relish being in police custody again, but as Lucy drew closer to the police station, he resigned himself to his fate.

"Make sure you've got everything that's yours," Lucy said as she pulled another corner too quickly and the car slid across the road. "If you accidentally leave your phone in here, it could ruin the evidence."

George checked his pockets and was happy he had everything.

"You know, I hope the news channels haven't picked up on this," Lucy grinned as she took the final corner slowly, making a police car overshoot. It hadn't expected her to pull into a police station and the driver only just managed to avert a serious collision with a line of concrete bollards. Unfortunately for George and Lucy, three other cars didn't make the same mistake and followed them into the police station.

"I hope they haven't," George said, feeling a sudden jolt of nerves. News attention would not only jeopardise his CHERUB career, but might seriously endanger the mission. The plan was that Callum and John would assume the car was found after a joyride, not handed in to a police station.

Lucy parked the car in the middle of the tarmacked area outside the station and switched off the engine. Police officers swarmed around the car, and before George could do more than blink, the door was wrenched open and he found himself being dragged out of the car by a couple of burly police officers, who had him on the floor handcuffed in seconds. His view was blocked by the car, but it looked like the same treatment was being dished out to Lucy on the other side. His face was pressed into the rough tarmac and pain shot up his arm as someone knelt on his injured hand.

"I'm-" George gasped, tears in his eyes, but he just got a shove for his trouble.

"Save it kiddo," the policeman said, lifting him clean off his feet and propelling him towards the station with a firm hand, bandage trailing behind him where it had unravelled. "You're nicked!"

"No, really, you need to speak to someone. We're supposed to be here."

The policeman laughed. "Hear that? The kid says he's supposed to be in custody!"

George gave up trying and just focused on keeping his hard away from further injury as he spotted Lucy being manhandled into the station. She had a bloody graze on her cheek, but he lost sight of her when someone yanked off his bandage and the most of the clotted blood on his palm. He let out a moan of pain and someone grabbed his arm.

"That's gonna need stitches," a voice said, but George had his eyes squeezed shut, trying not to think about the fresh wave of blood inching down his fingers.


	23. 23: Departure

**23: Departure**

They gave George first aid when he was processed, but there was too much bleeding. George felt weak and dizzy so they transferred him into a paramedic's car and he was driven to the nearest hospital, where they stitched up his hand. He spent the rest of the night sleeping in a secure ward of the hospital, and by the morning, Jules was waiting to pick him up.

"Morning," Jules said, holding open the car door for him. "Right this way, sir."

George felt a bit sick from the anaesthetic they'd given him and he didn't laugh, but he was glad to see Jules nonetheless.

Lucy was sitting in the front seat with a dressing taped to the side of her face. She gave him a friendly smile as he settled into the back seats, clipping on his seatbelt with his good hand.

"Nice night?" George asked, managing a cheeky smile.

Lucy shrugged. "A smelly cell is a smelly cell, I suppose. At least they left me alone after a while and Jules busted me out an hour ago. How many stitches?"

"Only five. Still hurts, though," George replied, glad they'd put a thick dressing on it. "How's your face?"

"Oh, it was just a few grazes from where they rubbed my face on the tarmac. I've had worse," she smiled.

Jules started the car and they pulled out of the hospital car park. George had expected that they'd go back to the house in Croydon but Jules had other ideas and turned towards the motorway.

"As soon as I realised that the police were chasing you, I got onto campus and they made sure the police didn't report it to the press. You're safe from cameras, so don't worry."

"Was it on the news?" George asked, getting comfortable.

"The local news said there's been a police pursuit but didn't have any footage or details. You'll be pleased to know that the police scooped up John and Callum, and the car you were in had plenty of incriminating evidence."

"So the mission's over?" Lucy asked, sounding relieved.

"Yes. When the police confirmed that the evidence was still in the boot, I went back to the house and cleared out. The excuse is that with you two out marauding every night, we're moving to somewhere quieter. The furniture's been left for the cleanup mob, but all of your personal possessions went back to campus at about five this morning. Sorry if they're not packed particularly well."

George shrugged. "It doesn't matter much, it'll be unpacked before long."

"Rex is already back on campus, but I expect he'll be asleep," Jules said. "We're driving straight back, unless there's anything you desperately need to go back for."

Lucy shook her head and George was about to do the same when he remembered about the money stuffed down the side of his mattress.

"Wait, I've got some money shoved-"

Jules chuckled. "Don't worry, we found your stash. I wouldn't get too excited though; it'll be seized and given to charity, I expect."

George relaxed a little. "Ah well, doesn't matter. At least it didn't get left behind."

"So what about Georgia's dad?" Lucy asked. "Wasn't he supposed to be arrested too?"

"Got a rude awakening this morning, I'm told," Jules said. "He's been arrested too, along with a few others who we've got strong evidence against. It's not gonna be particularly long sentences, but hopefully it's enough to wreck the organisation."

George grinned. "So, mission successful?"

"I'd say so," Jules replied, drinking a few mouthfuls of coffee. "Even the stolen BMW was returned to its rightful owners, although it had a few bumps."

"All done in time for Christmas," Lucy smiled. "It'll be nice to be back on campus for all the festivities."

George looked at her. "Hey, now I'm a confirmed superstar agent, I might be needed urgently on another mission before then."

Lucy laughed. "You're a long way from a superstar, trust me."

Jules smirked. "Just wait until you've read what I put in my mission report. You'll be scrubbing toilets for the next two years."

"What!?" George said, his mouth dropping open. "But you said… you said…"

Jules and Lucy laughed and George realised he was joking.

"You young agents get so competitive," Lucy smirked.

George saw the funny side and waved his injured arm. "You're supposed to be nice to the sick and injured. Anyway, I'll have the last laugh when I get my navy shirt."

"Keep dreaming," Lucy replied.

Jules looked in the mirror at George. "In all seriousness, you've both done a great job on this mission. I want to thank you for holding your nerve at the end, especially with the police chasing. An absolute bang-up job. I hope I get to work with you two again in future. Rex as well, of course."

George smiled at the compliment. "You were a pretty good mission controller, but next time I'm hoping for someone soft who lets me do whatever I want."

Jules shrugged. "Well, then I'll make sure I recommend that you get an absolute hard-ass next time."

They were back on campus by lunchtime. There were only two weeks left before lessons finished for the Christmas period and George spotted the occasional 'Merry Christmas' banner or miniature Christmas tree in some of the windows. It felt nice to be back and he was looking forward to a proper night's sleep in his bed without Rex being noisy on the bottom bunk or having to go out in the middle of the night.

"You can probably get some sleep this afternoon if you fancy it," Jules said as they approached the main building. "I don't think anyone's in a hurry to do your debriefing."

"Thank God," Lucy smiled.

George went straight back to his room after saying goodbye to Lucy and crashed on his bed. His hand ached and his bandages itched, but he'd found it hard to sleep in the hospital once the anaesthetic had worn off, so he just kicked off his shoes and slept on top of his duvet, not caring what he smelled like. There would be time to shower later on.

To his misfortune, being allowed to sleep through the afternoon meant that he had to go for a meeting with Zara at nine o'clock sharp the following day. He'd followed Letty's advice during half term and put all of his clothes into the laundry, which meant that now he had a neat pile of folded uniform to choose from. He pulled on a grey shirt, vaguely wondering whether it would be the last time he had to wear it, then went down for breakfast.

According to the receptionist, Zara was on the phone to the chief of MI6 when he got there, so he sat outside her office for nearly half an hour before she called him in.

"Hi George, take a seat," she said in a friendly tone. George realised that it was probably only the second time he'd ever been in a staff member's office where he wasn't in trouble, so he made the most of it.

"Are you meeting with Lucy and Rex as well?" George asked. He'd half-expected to bump into them outside her office.

"I've already spoken to Rex, he came to see me yesterday afternoon. Everyone gets to go and see the chairwoman after their first mission, but Lucy is an old hand so she just gets a message of congratulations or something," Zara explained. "Anyway, how's your hand?"

The doctors had told George not to get the dressing wet, but it had got splashed quite a bit while he was showering. He figured that CHERUB's medical department would fix it up.

"Aches a bit," George said. "Not too bad, though. I have some painkillers."

"Good," Zara said, leaning forward in her chair. "How was the mission? I've read the briefing. How did you think you did?"

George hated questions where you had to say how well you'd done, so he just kept his face neutral. "I don't know, okay I suppose. It was successful at least."

Zara nodded. "Well, you'll be pleased to know that the mission controller praised you quite a bit in the report. You had a few moments where you lost concentration, but you rose to the challenge when it counted. Pretty good for an agent on their first mission," she said. "In fact, your performance two days ago would probably be worthy of a navy shirt, when coupled with everything else you did."

George couldn't contain his excitement and he broke into a grin. Getting a navy shirt before he even turned eleven would be the best thing _ever_; he'd never get tired of rubbing it in with his friends.

Zara's expression went from friendly to frosty in an instant, and George felt his spirits sink.

"_Don't_ get cocky," she said sternly. "Your behaviour on campus has been an absolute disgrace and it is only because of this that I am not awarding you a navy shirt. I don't want to send a message that says all we value here is good mission performance."

"Yes Miss," George replied, wondering how he managed to come back from a successful mission and still get told off.

"However, if you pull off a performance that good in your next mission, I will be the first in the queue to recommend you for a navy shirt," Zara said, adopting her friendly tone again. "Just so long as you learn to behave yourself on campus."

"Yes Miss," George repeated.

"Anything else you wanted to ask about to do with the mission?"

George thought for a moment. "I don't think so."

"Well, then I suppose you can go," Zara said, gesturing towards the door. "You'll be back in lessons before long, I'd wager, so enjoy what remains of your rest."

George got up, but paused before he left. "Did Rex get a navy shirt, miss?"

"No, Rex didn't, but I wouldn't try teasing him until your hand gets better," Zara said, giving him a look.

Ignoring Zara's advice entirely, George proceeded directly to Rex's room and thumped on the door, singing 'cock-a-doodle-doo' at the top of his voice.

"What do you want?" Rex said, rubbing his eyes as he opened the door.

"I hear you didn't get a navy shirt," George smirked.

"Well neither did you, so I don't know what you're so happy about," Rex replied, letting him into the room. George stepped over the half-unpacked suitcases and sat on the bed while Rex yawned and looked around for clean uniform.

"So, remember that time you threatened me?" George said, smiling in what he thought was an evil way.

"Yeah? I'll still beat you senseless," Rex shrugged.

"Well, I _may_ have heard that you breached the Cherub guidelines for close attachments when on missions," George said, "and I also _may_ have heard that Rexy-kins was crying because he didn't get to say goodbye to his little girlfriend."

Rex gave him a murderous look. "Obviously not."

George shrugged. "Alright, but you know, there are plenty of teddies in the junior block if you need something to cry into."

Rex lunged at him and George dodged, anticipating it. His route to the door was blocked, so he stepped towards the bathroom, getting into a combat pose. Rex was bigger and stronger, but George could still hold his own.

"I'm gonna kill you," Rex said angrily, charging forwards. George tried to spin away, but Rex had picked his target. He grabbed George's bandaged hand and squeezed, hard. George let out a yelp of pain and tried to pull free. Rex squeezed again and George felt his face getting hot, but there was no way he was going to give Rex the satisfaction of seeing him cry. He wiggled free and sprinted for the door, getting out just before Rex could catch up and hurt him any more.


	24. 24: Tuition

**24: Tuition**

Once lessons had started again, George was beginning to miss the freedom he'd had whilst on the mission. Suddenly homework was important again and he got stung, forgetting to do a geography project and paying with two hours of cleaning the changing rooms. Christmas couldn't come fast enough.

George was making his way back to his room after an all-afternoon combat session. As soon as he'd had the stitches taken out of his hand he was enrolled on an intensive course with a bunch of red shirts, which made him feel like an idiot but at least he was the biggest one there. Once he got into his room he heaved his damp kit directly into his laundry bag before spotting the note that had been slid under his door while he'd been out. It told him to report to the technical department as soon as he'd finished eating, but because he'd stayed late clearing up the dojo, he'd almost entirely missed the food in the dining hall so he just microwaved chimichangas and ate them in front of the TV.

The technical department was deserted when George got there, but he'd only been hanging around for a couple of minutes when Lucy walked in behind him.

"Weren't you in the cafeteria?" she asked, sounding out-of-breath.

"Nah, I had combat in the dojo so I just ate in my room," George shrugged. "I thought the note was urgent or something."

Lucy looked at him with a secretive expression. "Alright, so I swiped some of the official paper. I don't think Terry will mind."

George looked around. There was nothing around except some recharging golf buggies. "So what did you want?"

Lucy produced a folded sheet of paper from her pocket. "I've got something you want here."

George tried to make out what it was, but it was too dark. "Let me guess, it's a terrible drawing you've done or something."

"Nope."

"Well are you going to give it to me?"

"No."

Lucy reached into her other pocket and produced two sets of car keys. "Spoke to Terry and managed to get these. Ready for a little late night driver training?"

George grabbed the nearest set and inspected them, grinning. "Whereabouts?"

"It's the abandoned race track just near campus. It's got floodlights, but I won't be switching them on. Beat me in a race and you can have the paper."

George would have raced whether or not there was an incentive for winning. "Come on then, let's go," he said, setting off at a jog. "I don't want to waste time."

CHERUB has a stock of off-road cars designed to simulate driving in less-developed countries where often the best roads are just jungle tracks or flat sections of beach. George knew that they wouldn't be as fast on a flat race track as some of the big-engined cars in the pool, but he was still impressed by the rack of nine powerful headlights on the front of the Subaru he'd got the keys for.

"Stick to the speed limit on the way there and don't engage full beam," Lucy said, climbing into a Ford. "I'll go first, but if we get pulled over I'm in deep trouble."

George climbed behind the wheel and pulled the chair all the way forwards. The steering wheel was fairly small to allow for very quick turns, but it had the added benefit of allowing him to see over it properly. He waited for Lucy to pull out of the car park before following slowly, enjoying the low rumble of the engine.

George hadn't been out to the race track before, but he was impressed when he saw it. It had stands big enough for a professional race and the track surface was well-maintained, although a lot of the crash barriers were rusting and the tyre walls had seen better days. He pulled up to the starting line alongside Lucy and looked over at her. She climbed out and jogged round to his window.

"We haven't got crash helmets or fireproof overalls, so whatever you do, try not to roll it over," she said, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "We'll have a rolling lap so you can learn the course, then five laps of speed. Strictly no contact."

George nodded, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter and putting the car into gear. "I'll wait for you at the finish line."

Lucy just rolled her eyes and went back to her car.

The engine was the biggest one George had been able to drive so far and he revved it a few times just for the noise. He felt insanely cool in the racing bucket seat with his headlights on full beam, illuminating the next hundred yards of track. Lucy held up three fingers and counted them down, and as soon as her last finger dropped, George floored the accelerator and felt the car lurch underneath him, wheels skidding for a moment before they found grip. He thought about how lucky he was to be driving around in such a fast car when most kids his age were just playing _Gran Turismo_, but then Lucy came up on the inside and suddenly he had to concentrate.

If the race taught George anything, it was that Lucy was an absolutely amazing driver. She was out of sight after the first lap and by the time he was halfway round the fourth, his rearview mirror was suddenly a blaze of light. He tried swerving to block her overtaking path on the inside, but he could only watch as she drifted around on the outside, almost inch-perfect, before blasting away ahead of him.

She waited at the finish line for him to finish his fifth lap. He pulled up alongside her and got out, exhausted from the effort of driving fast and from trying to see in the dark.

"You were pretty good," Lucy said, sitting on the cooling bonnet of her car. George sat beside her, but he didn't look as cool because his legs didn't reach the ground.

"No I wasn't," he grinned. "You were insanely good. I can't believe CHERUB trains you to drive that well."

"A lot of it is natural talent," Lucy smirked. "Anyway, let that be a lesson to you next time you think you can drive better than me."

George nodded. "I wish I could drive more. I think I'm getting pretty good now."

Lucy tapped her nose. "Ah, I almost forgot." She produced the piece of paper again. "I'm supposed to give it to you."

"Yeah, but you won, so I don't get it."

"Doesn't matter. The only way you would have beaten me was if I'd crashed, and that hasn't happened for nearly four years," she teased, passing him the sheet. He held it in front of the headlights to read it and recognised it as a class transfer form. He'd used one once before when he was a red shirt and he'd been in a higher-level maths class that he couldn't cope with.

"This gets me out of my teaching hours," George said, looking closely, "but everyone has to do teaching hours."

Lucy shook her head. "I had a word with Terry and he said if you were interested, you could swap your teaching hours for tutoring in the workshop. I've probably only got a year or so left at CHERUB so I think he wants to find my replacement," she smiled. "It's up to you."

"You think I'd rather teach some dumb red shirts than drive cars?" George grinned. "I'll hand this in first thing in the morning."

Lucy flicked his ear painfully. "I thought you'd say that, but don't think it's gonna be easy. I love making the younger Cherubs' lives a misery."

George rubbed his ear. "Don't care. If it gets me out of teaching assignment, you can be as mean as you want."

Lucy stretched her legs out. "You know Michael's coming back next week?"

"Really? I hadn't heard."

She nodded. "Yeah, he emailed me today saying that they're wrapping everything up and he'll be back in time for Christmas. He missed his sixteenth birthday on campus, so there's going to be a huge party. You wanna come?"

George grinned. "Obviously. Who else is going?"

"Mostly the older crowd, but it's always fun to have a couple of little kids like you around to liven things up," Lucy told him. "It's on Friday, after he gets back, so he's gonna have killer jet lag. Anyway, we'd better get back before they realise where we are," she said, getting to her feet.

George tried to do the cool thing and climb through the open window of his car, but he misjudged it and ended up having to twist in mid-air to avoid cracking his head open.

"Smooth moves," Lucy said, climbing into her car in a much slicker way. "See you when we get back."

George's class transfer request was granted and he found himself looking forward to lessons restarting in January, something he'd never thought he'd do. Most of the teachers still gave them homework right up until the very end, although in a couple of subjects the teachers were busy with something else, so they just watched DVDs or made cards. Rex seemed to have forgotten about Georgia and was back to actually enjoying himself. Letty was still away on her mission so George sent her a card, but everyone else was on campus for the first time since basic training.

After being away from campus for three months, George found that he'd got out of the loop in lots of things, especially the general campus rumour mill, but it didn't take him long to find his stride again. It felt nice to be part of a big group of grey shirts who were all trying to get the best missions and earn navy shirts, and there were even a few more grey shirts who were younger than him, so he no longer felt like the new guy with no mission experience.

With the party coming up, George invited Rex, since he figured it would be mean to leave him out. Rex invited Harry, who invited Ed, and it spiralled until basically everyone George knew was going. He wished Letty was around, but you couldn't have everything. With lessons nearly finished, everyone was in the festive mood, and you could barely walk down the seventh floor corridor without hearing Christmas music blaring out of someone's room. And the best thing of all was that in the hurry to leave the mission, he'd managed to keep hold of his PlayStation, although the rest of the money had disappeared. Nobody had questioned him about it yet, so to celebrate he held a major PlayStation tournament for the seventh floor, which finished at two in the morning when, after a particularly loud brawl broke out following a Manchester derby on FIFA, the eighth floor invaded and told them to go to bed or else.


	25. 25: Party

**25: Party**

Cherubs only had lessons in the morning on a Saturday, so by Friday evening nearly everyone just had one or two lessons to go before Christmas. The excitement was reaching a fever pitch in anticipation of the party for Michael's return. Normally he'd have been greeted by a crowd at the airport arrivals gate, but most of the minibuses were in service ferrying people to and from the local town, so Lucy had volunteered to drive down and pick him up so that the party would be a surprise. George had tanked up on fizzy drinks beforehand and was feeling rather hyper, which made it difficult to stand still for more than a few seconds. All of the party guests had squeezed into Michael's bedroom, which someone had unlocked with a lock gun, but there had been more than expected and in order to make room for the door to open, some people were standing in the bath.

"They're back on campus," a black shirt said. "Switch the lights out and shut up."

In the darkness, George found it impossible to resist laughing at nothing, which set everyone else off, and then someone accidentally stepped in the toilet and triggered howls of laughter. Frantic efforts by the older Cherubs got everyone to quiet down again, and everyone was silent by the time Lucy and Michael's voices could be heard through the door.

"I think everyone's down at dinner. We can go down as soon as you've dropped off your stuff," Lucy said as there was the noise of a key in the lock.

"Weird, it's already unlocked," Michael said, and as soon as the door began to move inwards someone threw it open and fifty camera phones flashed as the entire room screamed 'Surprise!' at the top of their voice. Michael practically jumped out of his skin and dropped his bag and his keys, causing another round of laughter as the lights were switched on and people began to file out, preferring standing in the corridor to squeezing into Michael's bedroom.

"Welcome back, big man," George said when he'd finally pushed his way through the crowd. With so many people in the room, George hadn't managed to get a good look at Michael's t-shirt, but closer inspection revealed it to be black. "Congrats on the shirt," he added.

"Thanks" Michael grinned, giving him a fist bump. "I bailed them out of a serious mess in the Philippines, so it was the least they could do."

"How was Down Under?" George asked. Michael was being plied with cans of beer, but he couldn't drink all of them, so George pinched one and Michael said nothing.

"Hot and sunny all the time," Michael replied. "I hear you were in London or something."

George nodded. "With Lucy, yeah. It was pretty good, but there wasn't much sun."

"Your turn will come," Michael grinned, exchanging a hug with a fellow black shirt as he passed. "Anyway, I'm going to go and mingle. Catch you later?"

"Yeah, no problem," George grinned, pleased he'd got his hands on a can. He didn't really like the taste but it made him look cool. He went to go and find friends nearer his age, who seemed to be hanging out in the corridor to avoid the crush in Michael's room.

The beer went straight to George's head and he spent the rest of the evening constantly being reduced to incoherent laughter by the slightest thing. As the evening wore on, lots of the older agents started getting off with each other, which made George feel embarrassed, but he ended up sitting with a group of Lucy's friends who were happy to tickle him until he drooled.

Rex was jealous of the attention that George was getting, and it was written all over his face. He sat on Michael's bed and sulked until Lucy walked over and grinned at him.

"Enjoying yourself," she asked, smirking a little. "You look like you got out on the wrong side of bed."

"Go away," Rex replied, still looking miserable.

"I'm sure we can arrange for you to be tickled if you'd like," Lucy said, draining the dregs of her bottle. "Can't we, girls?"

George was out of breath and was happy to watch them attack Rex, who remained miserable at first but cheered up a little after a sustained battle.

"He's smiling! I don't think he smiled at all during our mission," Lucy said, slurring her words slightly. "First time for everything."

Rex scowled. "I smiled, I just didn't smile at you because you're a cow."

George laughed and Lucy feigned anger. "How dare you call me that! I think he needs some more tickling."

Rex went back to laughing, but Lucy hadn't forgiven the comment, so she twisted his ear gently.

"Still think I'm a cow?" she asked, tugging a little harder.

"Yes," Rex said defiantly.

Lucy giggled, but her heel caught on the carpet and she tripped slightly, not letting go of Rex's ear and giving it a sharp twist. Rex howled in pain while Lucy was only saved from colliding with the floor by falling sideways onto the bed, practically wetting herself with laughter.

"What's so funny? That really hurt!" Rex shouted, going red in the face.

Lucy was helpless with drunken giggles, so even Rex flicking her off had no effect. George could see the tell-tale signs of a Rex tantrum, but he wasn't at his sharpest and by the time he'd got to his feet, Rex had already stormed over to Michael.

George worked out what Rex was going to say a fraction of a second before he opened his mouth, but his despairing run to the rescue meant he tripped over a pair of outstretched legs and only just managed to keep his balance.

"Your girlfriend was carrying on with some car mechanic on our mission," Rex said angrily. "George has pictures on his phone."

George froze, unsure whether to escape.

Michael fixed him with a look. "Is this true?"

"Yeah," George admitted, pulling out his phone and pulling up the photos he'd taken. Michael looked for long enough to determine that it was definitely Lucy before he walked over to he and yanked her to her feet by her wrist.

"Ow, that hurt," Lucy giggled faintly.

Michael towered over her. "Seeing some other guy behind my back, huh?" he said, a tone of anger in his voice.

Lucy stared blankly at him, her brain slowly processing this, then she spotted Rex standing just behind Michael with a satisfied look.

"I'm gonna bloody kill you," she screamed, dodging Michael's desperate grab. Rex had no chance against a black belt in karate, and before he knew it she'd kicked him in the kidneys and then smashed her palm into his nose. He toppled backwards and Lucy went in for the kill, but Michael wrapped his thick arms around her waist and dragged her away.

"Stupid cow," Rex shouted as he got back to his feet and charged at her. "It's not my fault you're a lying, cheating-"

George acted quickly and rugby tackled Rex before he could reach Lucy, sending him clattering onto the sofa. The back of the sofa gave out with a sharp crack and the two grey shirts tumbled over it and landed heavily on the floor. Rex threw wild punches at George as he struggled to get away, but a couple of bigger teenagers turned up and picked Rex up, holding his arms behind his back while George examined himself to see if any harm had been done. He seemed to be okay.

"Why the hell did you have to tell him?" George shouted at Rex, shaking his head. "You and your temper."

"She twisted my ear!" Rex protested, sounding more like a scolded child than anything else.

"So? You shouldn't get involved in other people's business."

"You're the one with the photos!"

George didn't really have a reply for this, so he just shrugged. "I'm not the one who keeps flying into as rage every five minutes. You need to grow up."

Michael had disappeared and Lucy was sobbing into the shoulder of one of her girl friends. George wanted to comfort her, but he didn't think she particularly needed to be reminded about him so he headed out to see if he could find Michael, but mostly just to get away from Rex.

Beatrice was sitting outside, sipping at a plastic cup full of Coke. "What's all the commotion in there?" she asked. "I've been looking after Ed because he ran around until he was sick."

George shook his head. "I caught Michael's girlfriend cheating on our mission and took pictures, but Rex just went and told Michael and then he got smacked one."

"Sounds like he deserved it."

George laughed. "Well at least it's slightly more sane out here. I think I might just go to bed before long, I don't think I want to deal with Rex."

Beatrice grabbed his arm. "But everyone's gonna go down to the lake and set off fireworks!" she said. "You've gotta stay for that."

George nodded. "Why not? So long as I stay away from that psychopath, he won't ruin my evening."

"That's the spirit. Anyway, come with me, Harry fell asleep and we've been drawing on his face. That'll take your mind off it."

George woke up the following morning with a headache and a missing sock. He wasn't sure where it was, but he remembered having his shoes stolen by Jemima and not getting them back. It was only when he spotted the mud smeared all over the bottom of the remaining sock that he remembered sliding around in the freezing cold mud outside.

Breakfast was a subdued affair. The only people there were younger kids and some of the older ones who'd missed the party the previous evening or had to get up early for a lesson. George had French first thing, and he was pleased to find that Rex hadn't made it. George expected that he would be sulking in his room, or possibly nursing the injuries Lucy had inflicted on him, but he knew that there would be punishments for everyone who missed lessons and he quite liked the idea of Rex getting punished.

After French he was officially finished for Christmas, but it seemed like everyone was either in bed or hungover, so there wasn't very much excitement going around. George was mostly just pleased that he hadn't been involved in any of the drama, except for restraining Rex. He realised that he was going to have to make up with Rex at some point before Christmas and he wasn't looking forward to it, but bitter experience had told him that Rex could sulk for weeks if you didn't make the first move. He put it out of his mind and looked forward to a quiet day on the PlayStation.

Unfortunately for him, when he got back to his room there was a note summoning him to Rose's office. He was trying to think of what he'd done wrong, but he guessed that it may have something to do with the fighting the previous night, or possibly the alcohol consumption. He was trying to weigh up which one would get him into more trouble and was leaning towards the alcohol by the time he'd put on a clean uniform and made his way down to Rose's office.

"Take a seat, Mr Knight," Rose said as he stepped into the room. "You know what I don't understand?"

"What, Miss?" George took his usual seat opposite her desk.

"How come you always seem to be in my office?" Rose asked, leaning on the desk and staring at him.

George shrugged. "It's never my fault."

"Never your fault," Rose said, once again pulling his file out of her drawer. It seemed much larger than it had been the last time. "Since you got back from your mission, I've filed three things in here, all disciplinary issues. Three."

"What are they, Miss?" George decided that playing innocent was the way to go.

Rose shook her head and sighed. "Firstly I get a late homework punishment. Then a complaint about your cheek in lessons. And finally I discover that you've been fighting at a party."

"It wasn't my fault, Miss!" George protested.

"Oh, then who was it?"

Cherubs never grassed on each other, so George didn't name names. "I was just keeping them apart."

"There's always teasing, we've been through this," Rose said, sounding tired. "If you're involved then you're just as bad as those who are fighting."

George didn't reply. He'd tried arguing in the past but it never got him anywhere.

"Now, your punishment was going to be cleaning duty, but I heard that you're interested in helping out in the technical department in the New Year, so I thought that I'd skip the punishment so long as you stick to that."

That suited George perfectly, but he didn't smile in case she changed her mind.

"Anyway, apart from all of that, the real reason I wanted to see you was about the money you obtained during your mission," Rose said, flicking through his file. "I believe it was in excess of a thousand pounds, but when we went through everything that came back from the mission, we didn't find all of it."

George shrugged.

"Don't shrug. I happen to know that you held a PlayStation tournament on a PlayStation that you owned. Don't tell me that you just so happened to save up your own money during the mission to conveniently buy it."

Well and truly rumbled, George just sank lower in his chair.

"You know that the proceeds of crime should be given to charity," Rose said, slamming his file shit. "When you went and bought that PlayStation you were encouraging crime, you know that?"

"To be fair, Miss, the mission did put a stop to the crimes."

"I'm not interested."

George was hoping that he wouldn't have to give the PlayStation back.

"Now, the report from your mission controller was overwhelmingly positive and despite last night, you do seem to have improved your discipline lately, so," Rose said, picking up the form which detailed all of the money he owed. She gently tore it in half and dropped it in her wastepaper bin. "Think of it as an early Christmas present from me. But in return, you're going to be on your all-time best behaviour for the rest of your life."

"Okay," George agreed, relieved.

"I'm sorry?"

"Oh, I mean yes Miss."

"Very good. Now off you go."

George got up to leave but Rose called him back just before he went.

"One last thing. I've deducted one-half of the cost of a replacement sofa for Michael's room from your pocket money," she explained. "I hope that's okay."

George nodded, doing his best not to look guilty.

"Now get out. Have a good Christmas."


	26. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

_The Mission_

CALLUM and JOHN WILLIAMS pleaded guilty to a variety of crimes regarding motor vehicles. They were each sentenced to five years in prison. The judge justified the heavy sentence with the way they cynically exploited children to earn money. The prosecution of the Williams brothers and most of their associates hinged on the evidence found in the boot of their car, which was recovered by the police following its abandonment.

KEVIN HARRIMAN was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for handling and selling stolen goods as well as his part in the motor vehicle crime ring. GEORGIA HARRIMAN's mother, THERESA HARRIMAN, is too ill to look after her, so both Georgia and Theresa moved to live with Theresa's parents in North Yorkshire.

DAMIEN McADAMS pleaded guilty to theft and was given a three month suspended sentence. He was subsequently fired from his job at the garage in Croydon along with four other mechanics suspected to have been involved.

FRANK LYONS (A.K.A. LEE) pleaded not guilty to a range of crimes encompassing theft, extortion and fraud. He was found not guilty on all counts, but was convicted of possession of an offensive weapon and was sentenced to six months in prison.

OLIVER HERON (Ollie) and seven other youths between the ages of 10 and 15 were investigated with regard to motor vehicle offences, but none were charged.

_The Cherubs_

JULIAN RICHARDSON (Jules) resigned his post at MI6 following the mission and joined CHERUB as a full-time Mission Controller.

LUCY KURIAN failed to attend lessons the day after the party, and after her involvement in the fighting was revealed, faced expulsion from CHERUB. Eventually her punishment was reduced to a recruitment mission and five hundred laps. She is due to depart for her recruitment mission in Birmingham in the new year.

MICHAEL JAARSVELD broke up with Lucy after finding out about her cheating. He was highly praised for his performance on an emergency mission in the Philippines and subsequently on an extended recruitment mission in New Zealand. He was given one hundred hours cleaning duty for the party and its aftermath.

LETTICIA KATZ is still away on her mission in the United States. She is hopeful of being back within the next few months. Her senior mission controller, JOHN JONES, says she is doing well.

BEATRICE STONE was fined £50 and given one hundred laps for setting off a firework in a CHERUB-issue boot, which led to damage to the central fountain. JEMIMA SUZUKI was suspected of involvement but was not punished.

REX REYNOLDS was severely criticised for his role in the fighting. His mission performance was described as solid and at times, excellent, but he was assigned a recruitment mission in Oxfordshire and is expected to depart as soon as he is up-to-date with his schoolwork.

GEORGE KNIGHT is due to begin his tutoring in the Technical Department when lessons restart in January. He is looking forward to his eleventh birthday in January and is trying to stay out of trouble.

GEORGE KNIGHT WILL RETURN

IN

CHERUB: THE SYNDICATE

Read on for an exclusive preview of the first chapter of _CHERUB: The Syndicate._


	27. Cherub: The Syndicate Preview Chapter

**1: Crowd**

_March 2011_

Letty took a few deep breaths to steady herself. She didn't want to let nerves overcome her at this crucial phase. Once she was breathing normally again, she expertly tapped the keys on her netbook, setting it to copy the entire contents of the hard drive she had wired it up to.

Someone knocked on the door of the cubicle.

"Sorry, someone's in here," Letty replied in her best New York accent. Whoever it was went away and she breathed a sigh of relief. The netbook said there were eight minutes to go until the entire hard drive was going to be copied, and Letty thought that they were probably the most nerve-wracking eight minutes of her life. She could hear people going in and out of the bathroom, but because she couldn't see them, any of them could be an enemy. Most of them just seemed to be regular women working in the office, so she was left alone after that, staring at the flashing blue bar and wishing more than anything that it would hurry up. To pass the time she sent a quick email to her best friends Jemima and Beatrice, reminding them that she'd be back soon and was expecting a big welcome. She briefly considered sending it to George too, but he never checked his email account so she decided against it.

When it finished copying, she unplugged the hard drive and netbook and shoved them into her bag. After flushing, she stepped out and washed her hands, purely for appearances. She'd been too nervous to actually use the toilet.

"All good up there?" a voice whispered in her ear.

Letty pressed down on the tiny button behind her ear so she could respond. "It's all copied. Now I just have to replace the hard drive and get out of here."

"Good job," the calm voice of John Jones, her mission controller replied.

Letty stepped out of the toilets and tugged at the hem of her dress. It wasn't really warm enough for a dress, and the weather in Chicago could be variable at this time of year, but it was too late to change now. She strolled back into the office and was hit by one of the strangest sights she thought she'd ever see; a vista of downtown Chicago and the strong blueness of Lake Michigan from more than a thousand feet up, but the river which normally wound its way through downtown had been dyed a bright green colour in honour of St. Patrick's Day. She wished she could take a picture, but she didn't have a camera on her.

Nobody in the office looked at her as she made her way to a walled-off area. Children weren't exactly common in downtown offices, but she'd been to the office before and anyone trying to ask her if she was lost was usually met with a tongue-lashing from the boss.

The desktop computer was as she'd left it, so it was easy to slot the hard drive back into place. She produced a tiny screwdriver from her bag and screwed everything into place, before closing up the case and leaving the desktop exactly where she'd found it. With luck, nobody would ever know she'd been inside it. She did a last minute check to make sure nothing was out of place.

"Come in, Letty," John's voice said, and Letty paused in the office to answer.

"What's up?"

"We've got movement down here at street level. Our guys have entered the foyer and they're practically guaranteed to eyeball you if you go down now."

Letty felt panic rising, but she forced herself to stay calm. "Advice?"

"I'll manufacture a diversion in exactly four minutes. You come down in the lift and I'll time it so you can slip past," John said quickly.

"Roger," Letty replied, smiling inwardly at the way John called elevators 'lifts'. She headed for the nearest one, ensuring her netbook was safely stowed in her bag. Nobody used the elevators much during the day, so she got one to herself and pressed the button for the ground floor. Descending a thousand feet in a windowless box always made her stomach jolt, but the ride was usually very smooth. The only problem was, the thick walls of the lift cut off her communications, so she just had to hope that John had the diversion going.

The elevator doors slid open and Letty stepped out, trying to walk as if she didn't have any cares in the world. There was a commotion on one side of the lobby which Letty assumed was John's diversion, but she didn't pause to watch. She headed directly for the nearest exit and felt a breath of cool air as she pushed her way out into downtown Chicago. A train rattled by on the raised tracks, its brakes making a racket, and she headed due east, having to impatiently wait at a crosswalk before she could put distance between herself and the building.

"... hear me?"

Letty pressed her finger to her ear. "Sorry, can you repeat? There was one of those trains."

"Someone's spotted you and is following you out of the east doors. Try and get in a taxi and head for O'Hare airport; have you got the fare?"

"Got enough," Letty replied, dicing with death as she ran across the road and narrowly dodged an oncoming car.

"Try and lose them; we don't want them to follow the taxi."

John didn't have to tell her. Letty had seen first-hand how dangerous the people they were dealing with could be, and she didn't fancy being dragged out of a taxi and made to answer questions about the sensitive data saved on her netbook.

She didn't want to run because it looked suspicious, so she just walked quickly. She had no idea where the nearest taxi rank was and hailing one in the street was dodgy at the best of times. It was only when she heard a shout from behind her and saw two men in suits sprinting flat-out towards her that she finally broke into a run. She'd worn flat pumps because they were the only thing that went with the dress, but they were impossible to move quickly in, so she kicked them off and ran in socks. The pavements were probably covered in all kinds of horrible stuff, but it had to be better than being caught.

The men were going to catch up if she ran in a straight line, so she ducked to the right and followed the line of the trains, weaving in and out of the metal supports before making another hard left. She could still hear shouts behind her so she didn't slow down, and she picked up speed on the relatively clear pavement.

The next turning took her across another road, but mercifully there wasn't any traffic. The street ahead led past the front of a hotel and she briefly considered ducking inside; they couldn't grab her there. The only problem was, they could wait outside for her…

Looking ahead, she saw a distinctive green sign with 'Michigan Ave.' on it and she had a brainwave. She flashed past a surprised hotel doorman and into the lobby, which was mostly done out in marble. Her socked feet skidded on the polished surface and she was sure she was going to topple over, but she regained her balance and hit carpet, which allowed her to speed up again. Her brainwave was this; the hotel was on the corner of a smaller street and Michigan Avenue, which was the major street in Chicago. The hotel was therefore guaranteed to have an entrance on Michigan Avenue, and she was right. She sped through it, slowing down only to push it open, and then she found herself on the pavement again. There was no sign of the men, but it didn't take a genius to work out where she'd gone. She set off up the street, weaving in and out of shoppers and business people out for lunch, trying hard not to trip over anything.

Her plan was to run up the street until she came across a crosswalk which was on green, but she spotted a couple of suspicious-looking men coming out of a street ahead. They had obviously been running and while they might not be after her, she couldn't take the chance. With nothing more than a brief glance to her left, Letty sprinted out into the flowing traffic, feeling like she was playing a giant, scary video game. A van nearly splattered her, but she dodged at the last second and took advantage of a break in the traffic on the other side to dash madly for the safety of the pavement. She made it in one piece, although she felt like she'd suffered a couple of minor heart attacks in the process, but there was no time to rest. She carried on up the street, looking around desperately for a taxi, but there were none in sight.

With nowhere else to go, she cut to the right and sprinted at full pelt through the park. People gave her odd looks as she went, but she didn't notice them, concentrating only on where she was putting her feet. The panic was coming again because she knew she wasn't going to be able to find a taxi. She turned a corner and suddenly skidded to a blissful halt. She'd run straight into the huge crowds of the St. Patrick's Day parade and, as she pushed between people and disappeared into the mass, there was absolutely no chance of them finding her amongst the thousands lining the route.

"John?" she asked, pressing on her communicator.

"Loud and clear," he replied.

"I'm just near Buckingham Fountain in a huge crowd. I've lost them, probably for good."

"Excellent work. According to my laptop your nearest taxi rank is north, so just follow the crowd until you get there," he said.

"Meet you at the airport," Letty said, pausing for a moment to get her breath back. She checked and her netbook was still safely in her bag, but the pause in her movement meant someone stepped on her foot in a ten-hole boot and made her bite her lip. Talk about a close call. She turned her head and looked up at the office tower she'd just departed, marvelling at how far she'd come in such a short time. There _had_ to be a navy shirt in this.


End file.
